Minecraft: Here’s How to Give Villagers Jobs & Make Them Work for You

It’s always a joy when you come across a fairly large village in Minecraft because the odds of getting villagers with plenty of different professions are quite high. Still, there isn’t a village where all professions can be found, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t assign jobs to villagers yourself and effectively make them work for you. This is what we’re going to explore today as we analyze how to give villagers jobs or even change them.

Editor’s Note: This post was updated in October 2023, and it reflects the most up-to-date state of the game.

You can give villagers specific professions as long as they are unemployed

Villagers have plenty of mechanics that make them seem almost always, and of the important functions that they perform is their own job. Villagers are Minecraft’s economy’s lifeblood and emeralds’ most important source. You can come across plenty of good trades, but only under the condition that a certain village has enough professionals to offer those trades.

Luckily, even if a village lacks some professions like librarian and cleric, you can always assign a profession to a villager. But there’s a catch: the villagers need to be unemployed prior to this, and he needs to have a bed inside the village. The job site block also needs to be readily accessible and within the village, for the unemployed villagers to reach it. To give the job to a villager, follow these steps:

1. Craft a job site block of a specific profession that you would like to assign to a villager.
2. Place the job site block within the boundaries of the villager (no further than 48 blocks away from the villager) and make sure that he can easily walk toward the job site block.
3. Unemployed villagers should approach the job site block and claim it. Once he does this, the villager’s clothes will change, and there will be green experience orbs floating around him.

Once the villager has claimed your job site block, it will have a regular schedule, just like all other professionals in Minecraft’s world, and the villager will be available for trades.

Can you change the villager’s profession?

Changing the profession of an already existing villager with a job site block claimed is possible but a bit harder as one specific condition needs to be met. To change a villager’s profession, you can’t trade with it, ever. Once you’ve traded with the villager, his profession is “locked in,” even if you destroy its job site block, it will wander around until it is created again.

So, before you trade with anyone in the village that you’ve newly discovered, first inspect all professions and figure out whether you want to change them because as soon as the first trade is made, it won’t be possible. To change a villager’s profession, follow these steps:

1. Approach a villager that you have not yet traded with.
2. Destroy its job site block.
3. Replace the job site block with the one that you had in mind.
4. Villager should claim the new job site block without any problems.

How to craft job site blocks?

Each profession in Minecraft has a corresponding job site block that they use to perform their daily tasks and restock their trades. Once a job site block is removed from the villager, it will be unable to perform its job. The job site block is basically the same block you would use as a player to craft certain items, with several exceptions. The following is a list of all job site blocks and their corresponding professions, including how to craft them:

1. Armorer uses Blast Furnace

If you want to assign an armorer job to a villager, you must create a blast furnace. Blast Furnace is crafted at the crafting table by combining 5x iron ingots, 1x furnace, and 3x smooth stone.

2. The butcher uses a Smoker

Butchers provide the players with various meets, and to perform their duties, they need smokers. To create a smoker, combine 4x pieces of any wood with a furnace.

3. Cartographers use Cartography table

To create a cartography table for a cartographer villager, you need to combine 4x wooden planks of any type with 2x paper.

4. Clerics Use Brewing Stands

Cleric job site block is one of the most demanding to create as it requires 1 x Blaze Rods and 3 x Cobblestone /Blackstone, but once you’ve created the job site block, you will learn that clerics are among the most valuable in the game.

5. Farmer needs Composter

Every villager has a farmer, but if you ever need to create more of them, you should know that they use composters. Composters are created at the crafting table and require 7x wooden slabs of any kind.

6. Fishermen use Barrels

Even if you’re not around a body of water, that doesn’t stop you from creating a fisherman villager. To assign a job to an unemployed villager, you need to create a barrel at the crafting table, which requires 6x planks of any type and 2x wooden slabs of any type.

7. Fletchers use a Fletching table

Fletchers are a relatively new profession, and they mostly deal with archery-specific items. To create a fletching table, you need 2 x pieces of flint and 4 x pieces of wooden plank of any type.

8. Leatherworkers need Cauldrons

Leatherworkers spent their days hunched over cauldrons, and this piece of equipment is a must if you want to repaint your armor. To create a cauldron, you need 7x iron ingots.

9. Librarians use Lecterns

Librarians won’t provide you with regular books but do have an excellent selection of enchanted books. To create a lectern, you need to combine 4x wooden slabs of any type with a single bookshelf.

10. Stone Masons use Stonecutters

Stonemasons are a new profession that requires a new job site block added to the game, you can create a stonecutter by combining 3x pieces of stone with a single iron ingot.

11. Shepherds need Looms

Shepherds are in charge of creating beautiful patterns, and to create a shepherd, you need Loom. Loom is crafted at the crafting table by combining 2x wooden planks of any type with 2x pieces of string.

12. The toolsmith needs a Smithing Table

Toolsmiths are where all these awesome tools come from, and to create a toolsmith, you need to craft a smithing table by combining 4x wooden planks of any type with 2x Iron Ingots.

13. Weaponsmiths use Grindstone

Grindstone is always useful to have to repair your gear even if you don’t have a weaponsmith around. To create a grindstone, you need to combine 2x wooden planks of any type and 1x stone slab in 2x sticks on the crafting table.

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