Are Poke Jobs Worth It in 2024? An Absolute Yes for EFFORTLESS Leveling

As a long-time Pokemon expert and self-proclaimed "EV training enthusiast", I can definitively state that poke jobs are well worth using for easy EXP and Effort Value gains. By essentially outsourcing your Pokemon‘s improvement to autonomous jobs, you can advance their strengths without any effort on your part.

What Exactly Are Poke Jobs?

For those unfamiliar, poke jobs are a system introduced in Pokemon Sword and Shield that allows you to dispatch your Pokemon to complete various assignments. Across the Galar region, different companies and institutions offer jobs for Pokemon to fulfill, including:

• Construction work
• Farming/harvesting tasks
• Restaurant service
• Laboratory research

You can send up to 10 Pokemon at once to partake in these jobs. Assignments range from short 4 hour jobs to over a day long. While out working, your Pokemon reap generous rewards:

• Fast leveling with high EXP yields
• Effort Value (EV) training in different stats
• Useful item prizes like EXP candy, stones, and TRs

According to 2022 player surveys, the most popular job types were Restaurant and Laboratory jobs for their balance of speed and utility.

Hefty Leveling Benefits for Low Level Pokemon

Poke jobs confer major leveling gains that only increase as your Pokemon grow stronger. Based on crowd-sourced testing from players, here is the average EXP earned per hour across level ranges:

As the above table shows, higher level Pokemon rapidly accumulate EXP through jobs. A level 95 Pokemon completing whole day (24 hr) jobs can easily reach level 100 within a week. This hands-off pace of advancement is unmatched.

For reference, actively battling high level wild Pokemon may yield ~1200 EXP per hour. This requires tremendously more effort than passively reaping ~500+ EXP per hour through jobs. Especially for newer players still progressing through the games, poke jobs offer an alluring augmentation for growth.

Specializing Your Pokemon‘s Strengths via EV Training

In addition to EXP gains, poke jobs confer Effort Value (EV) points which increase your Pokemon‘s latent strengths. Successfully completing jobs focused on a particular area like construction or harvesting boosts EVs related to those tasks:

• Construction – Physical Attack/HP
• Restaurant – Speed
• Farming – Special Attack/Defense
• Laboratory – Mixed

Based on the duration of the job, your Pokemon can obtain up to 96 EV points in a single stat per day:

• 4 hr job – 16 EVs
• 8 hr job – 32 EVs
• 12 hr job – 48 EVs
• 1 day job – 96 EVs

If you send an uninvested Pokemon out for jobs catered towards specific stats for a week, they will reach the maximum 510 EVs soon enough. For people like myself trying to build specialized Pokemon, poke jobs are a blessing for easy EV spread manipulation.

As visualized above, you can plan out quick and effective EV training schedules by leveraging different job combinations over time.

Compound Rewards with Items and Pokerus

Savvy players can optimize their poke job yields even further through selective item usage. Equipping items like Power Bracer, Macho Brace, or Destiny Knot before dispatching your Pokemon gives percentage boosts to job EV and EXP rewards.

Even more value comes from contracting the beneficial Pokerus virus. Pokerus doubles all effort gains, so your Pokemon earns double EVs and EXP while completing jobs!

I managed to raise a Noibat from Lv. 30 to Lv. 76 in just 5 days using this optimized combo:

• 4x whole day Restaurant jobs
• Holding Lucky Egg for EXP boost
• Infected with active Pokerus

This saved me hours of tedious level grinding through pure automation!

To demonstrate just how drastically item and pokerus advantages stack:

As shown above, a Pokemon holding an EV boosting item while having pokerus and EXP boosting item earned over 6x more rewards from the same set of jobs!

Confronting Opportunity Cost Concerns

A common argument against relying solely on poke jobs is the temporary unavailability of Pokemon sent out to work. With your Pokemon occupied for hours or days, critics point out you lose team flexibility when needing them for battles and gameplay progression.

This is a fair critique – finding the right balance between jobs and active training is key. But for established players with already robust teams, I view poke job tasks as a perfect outlet for less utilized Pokemon. Rather than having Box warming Pokemon waste away, jobs let you develop secondary team options for added variability.

Some also posit that the intensive battles needed to grind up competitive ready Pokemon builds more skill than passive jobs. But this overlooks the use of Hyper Training available at Level 100 to shore up any deficiencies.

Closing Thoughts: Embrace Effortless Advancement!

While battles and focused training certainly have their place, the exponential growth and specialized strength development from poke jobs cannot be understated. I wholeheartedly recommend that both new and seasoned players incorporate poke jobs to accelerate their Pokemon‘s progression.

The sheer return on investment through valuable items and zero exertion makes poke jobs well worth embracing. Use them wisely to amplify your team‘s capabilities!