Will Anyone Take the Factory Jobs Trump Wants to Bring Back to America?

At 6 a.m. every weekday, a group of sturdy-framed men in steel-toed boots clock into the small factory at Quaker City Castings to build sand molds, pour molten metal and grind iron and steel castings.

The jobs are tiring, feature hazards not found at desk jobs and are tough to fill. Once workers are recruited, it can be difficult to get them to stay. This is work politicians lionize, but Americans often don’t want.

“A lot of people say they wouldn’t work in a place like this because of how hard it is,” said Zachary Puchajda, a 25-year old worker who took up metalcasting when a friend who worked at Quaker City introduced him to it.