Protections provided by New Jersey’s family leave law are being expanded to smaller businesses under legislation outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy signed on Jan. 17.
Until the enactment of this bill, only employees at businesses with a minimum 30 workers were eligible for job-protected benefits under New Jersey’s paid family leave program…
Now, with the law Murphy signed, part of Assembly Bill 3451, that benefit is being expanded to workers at businesses with at least 15 employees. In addition, the benefit will now be offered to an employee who has worked for a business for at least three months, down from a year.
“The enrollment of paid family leave is increasing for both fathers and mothers, and parents are more likely to take paid family leave when a mandatory paid family leave policy is available,” reads an October 2025 report by Andrea Hall and Slawa Rokicki, two researchers at the New Jersey State Policy Lab at Rutgers University.
But a separate 2023 study by Rutgers’ Heldrich Center for Workforce Development found that less than half of New Jersey workers — 47% — knew about paid family leave.