Houston, TX · Staffing agency & recruiters
Careerscape is a national staffing agency that recruits remotely for Houston employers and job seekers, with recruiters organized by industry. Here is how Houston's energy and medical economies hire in 2026, what the jobs pay, and how contract and turnaround work differs from a direct hire.
By the numbers
Metro figures are for the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands area from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, not seasonally adjusted. Unemployment is for August 2026 and job counts for September 2026, the latest months published; both are preliminary. The Medical Center figure comes from the Texas Medical Center itself.
What's hiring
Energy gets the headlines, but in 2026 the growth is in construction, engineering and services, while oil and gas payrolls hold flat. Job counts are BLS metro figures for September 2026 (preliminary), compared with September 2025.
Chevron's annual report filed in February 2026 lists its principal executive offices at 1400 Smith Street downtown. ExxonMobil is based in Spring and ConocoPhillips on Eldridge Parkway in west Houston. Mining and logging, the BLS sector that includes oil and gas extraction, held at about 73,100 jobs, unchanged from a year earlier.
ExxonMobil's Baytown site has about 565,000 barrels a day of refining capacity plus ethylene and polypropylene units. LyondellBasell shut its Houston refinery in early 2025 and plans to reuse parts of it for plastics recycling after 2027. Manufacturing employs about 240,100, down 0.1%.
The fastest-growing sector: about 269,300 jobs, up 5.4%. Industrial projects, maintenance and commercial building draw on the same pipefitters, electricians, welders and superintendents.
About 578,000 jobs, up 2.7%. This is where engineering and design firms, energy consultants, accounting and legal work are counted, so much of Houston's white-collar energy hiring lands here.
TMC reports more than 120,000 employees and 10 million patient encounters a year. Its members include MD Anderson, Texas Children's Hospital, Houston Methodist and Baylor College of Medicine. Education and health services employ about 474,900, up 1.2%.
Information jobs fell 5.3% to about 26,800 and financial activities fell 1.0% to about 176,100. Experienced candidates in those fields may be easier to find than a year ago.
Plant turnarounds and contract labor
Much of Houston's industrial hiring is not one person at a time. It's a crew, for a fixed window, at a site with strict entry rules. Here's how that work is organized.
A planned shutdown of a refinery or chemical unit for inspection, repair and upgrades. The site's own staff is far too small for the job, so contractors bring in pipefitters, boilermakers, welders, millwrights, instrument techs, inspectors and supervisors for a few weeks of long shifts. The schedule is set months ahead, and so is the hiring.
Turnaround and project crews are usually contract: the worker is on the staffing agency's payroll and the site pays an hourly bill rate. Operators, planners, reliability engineers and maintenance leads are often direct hires or contract-to-hire, because sites want them long term.
Under OSHA's Process Safety Management standard (29 CFR 1910.119), the host plant must evaluate a contractor's safety record and programs, brief it on fire, explosion and toxic-release hazards, and control who enters process areas. The contract employer must train each worker and document that training.
Anyone who needs unescorted access to secure areas of maritime facilities, including many ship channel terminals, needs a TSA Transportation Worker Identification Credential. It costs $128 for a new applicant, lasts five years, and TSA says to allow 30 to 45 days.
Texas generally lets private employers opt out of workers' compensation. Employers without coverage, called non-subscribers, must report that to the state and report injuries with more than one day of lost time. Ask any contractor or agency which side it is on.
Sites commonly ask for current safety training, a drug screen and background check before a badge, plus any craft certifications. Workers who keep those current can start when a window opens instead of waiting on paperwork.
Pay benchmarks
Median annual wages in the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands metro from the latest federal wage survey. Turnaround pay is usually hourly, with overtime, so annual medians understate what a heavy turnaround season can pay.
| Role | Median annual pay | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Petroleum engineers | $169,870 | BLS OEWS, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands MSA, May 2025 |
| Chemical engineers | $138,120 | BLS OEWS, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands MSA, May 2025 |
| Nurse practitioners | $134,560 | BLS OEWS, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands MSA, May 2025 |
| Medical and health services managers | $124,400 | BLS OEWS, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands MSA, May 2025 |
| Chemical plant and system operators | $106,020 | BLS OEWS, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands MSA, May 2025 |
| Registered nurses | $99,830 | BLS OEWS, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands MSA, May 2025 |
| Refinery operators, pump system operators and gaugers | $84,100 | BLS OEWS, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands MSA, May 2025 |
| Respiratory therapists | $80,450 | BLS OEWS, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands MSA, May 2025 |
| Boilermakers | $77,090 | BLS OEWS, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands MSA, May 2025 |
| Plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters | $61,300 | BLS OEWS, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands MSA, May 2025 |
| Electricians | $59,180 | BLS OEWS, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands MSA, May 2025 |
| Welders, cutters, solderers and brazers | $57,940 | BLS OEWS, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands MSA, May 2025 |
The median for all occupations in the metro is $49,410. For 450+ roles across 25+ industries, see the 2026 Salary Guide.
For employers
Texas sticks close to the federal baseline and limits what cities can add. General information, current as of October 2026, not legal advice.
Either side can end employment at any time, with or without cause, subject to anti-discrimination law and narrow exceptions such as firing someone for refusing to break the law.
Texas has no pay-transparency law. A posting for a remote role open to people in states that require ranges, such as Colorado, California or New York, can still be covered by those rules.
HB 2127, in effect since September 1, 2023, bars Texas cities from enforcing labor rules beyond state law. A 2023 trial-court ruling against it was reversed on appeal in July 2025. Houston, Pasadena and Sugar Land follow the same state rules.
Non-exempt staff must be paid at least twice a month and exempt staff at least monthly. Final pay is due within six calendar days of a discharge, or by the next regular payday after a resignation. Short turnaround assignments make the six-day rule come up often.
Since September 1, 2025, new or renewed non-competes for physicians, nurses, physician assistants and dentists are limited to one year and five miles and must include a buyout capped at a year's pay. That matters when hiring clinicians away from another TMC institution.
Texas voters put a ban on a state personal income tax into the constitution in 2019. It is a real point when recruiting engineers or clinicians from California, New York or Illinois.
Where the work is
Houston is spread out, and a plant on the ship channel and an office in The Woodlands are very different drives. The commute often decides whether a candidate says yes. Here is where each kind of work sits.
Energy company offices, including Chevron's headquarters on Smith Street, plus the law, accounting and banking firms that serve them. METRORail's Red Line runs from downtown south to the Medical Center.
South of downtown, with more than 120,000 employees across its member institutions, and TMC Helix Park, a 37-acre research campus. Clinical, research, lab and hospital operations roles cluster here.
West Houston along Eldridge Parkway, where ConocoPhillips is headquartered. Engineering, project controls and corporate energy jobs, within reach of Katy and the western suburbs.
North of the city, home to ExxonMobil's headquarters campus in Spring. Corporate, IT and engineering roles here suit candidates in Montgomery County and north Harris County.
The Houston Ship Channel's industrial belt: refineries, chemical plants and terminals, including ExxonMobil's Baytown complex and Port Houston's Barbours Cut and Bayport container terminals. Operators, crafts and turnaround crews work here.
Southeast toward Galveston Bay, home of NASA's Johnson Space Center and its Mission Control. Aerospace engineering, contractor and technician roles, plus easy reach to the Bayport-area plants.
How it works
Careerscape has no Houston office. Our recruiters specialize by industry and recruit for Houston roles remotely, by phone, video and our portals.
Request talent with the role, pay, schedule and site. Say whether it's a turnaround crew with fixed dates, a project contract or a permanent hire at a plant, an office or a TMC institution. We confirm the service that fits: direct hire, contract, contract-to-hire, temporary staffing or executive search.
An energy, engineering or healthcare recruiter searches the Gulf Coast and candidates willing to travel or relocate, then screens for credentials, site requirements, pay and commute.
You get a short list of pre-screened candidates, not a pile of resumes, in a private Employer Portal where you request interviews, leave feedback and track the pipeline.
Submit your resume or browse open jobs. Tell us whether you want contract or permanent work and which part of town you can reach. It is free, and confidential if you're currently employed. Track your status in the Candidate Portal.
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