PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating effect of resilience on the relationship between emotional labor and happiness of clinical nurses. METHODS: A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted with 224 clinical nurses who had one or more years of clinical experiences from four general hospitals in D city in Korea. Data collected from the survey using self-reported questionnaires were analyzed by t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficients, and multiple regression analysis using IBM SPSS statistics 21.0 program. RESULTS: There were statistically significant correlations among variables; a negative correlation between happiness and emotional labor, a positive correlation between happiness and resilience, and a negative correlation between emotional labor and resilience. Meanwhile, resilience had a partial mediating effect on the relationship between emotional labor and happiness. That is, resilience can play an important role between emotional labor and happiness of clinical nurses as a mediator. CONCLUSION: Considering the findings of this study, developing programs that can improve resilience of clinical nurses who experience emotional labor are needed to increase their level of happiness.