Millions of Americans spend their workdays behind a desk, making phone calls, sending e-mails, shuffling sales figures. On TV, though, the latest trend in the reality genre is programming about dirty, dangerous and downright nasty jobs.

The Discovery Channel has a hit with The Deadliest Catch, about crab fishermen in the Bering Sea, off the coast of Alaska. Discovery also has Dirty Jobs, with host Mike Rowe working as a roadkill collector, cow midwife, salt miner, animal skull cleaner, and more. On the History Channel, there’s Ice Road Truckers, about truck drivers in the Arctic, and Ax Men, which focuses on lumberjacks.

The latest entry in the genre is America’s Toughest Jobs, which debuts tomorrow night on NBC at 9 p.m. Created by producer Thom Beers, whose resume includes Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers, the new show combines the familiar competitive element of shows such as Survivor with the more recent fad for watching down-and-dirty jobs.

America’s Toughest Jobs takes 13 contestants and puts them to work, with the weak and/or incompetent being eliminated one by one. In the first episodes, Beers goes back to what he knows best, putting his contestants on crab fishing boats and behind the wheels of big rigs in the Arctic. Later episodes have contestants digging for gold, bullfighting at rodeos and drilling for oil.

“What I look for are jobs with big risks and big rewards,” said Beers in a conference call with journalists last week. “Most of them, you don’t know how much you’ll make every week. Most of us go to work, and every two weeks we get a paycheck, and we know exactly within about three pennies what that paycheck is going to be. Most of these jobs are jobs that literally you don’t know what the reward is. But with big risk comes big reward.”

What’s the appeal of all these shows about tough jobs?

Beers takes the more romantic view, that it’s a celebration of a rugged work ethic that is disappearing from our lives.

“We basically have gotten to the point that we’ve designed and bought things up, and then basically shipped them offshore to be made. We no longer work with our hands. I don’t know any kids, I don’t know anybody under 35, unless they’re professionals, that even know how to use an electric screwdriver, for God’s sake,” he said.

“We don’t make anything anymore. And I think right now the time is right for us to think about where we’re going in our world. We can no longer sit around and just try to make money from our money . . . It’s about time we all started to learn to take our work ethic back and actually get in there are start doing things. Work with your hands. Start making stuff again.”

Beers even sees the rough-hewn fishermen and truckers on his shows as new American heroes.

“Our heroes are disappearing. We’re looking for people to celebrate,” he said.

Stanley Baran, professor of communication at Bryant University, sees the other side of the picture. Namely, viewers are relieved that their jobs don’t involve standing on a pitching deck with 20-foot waves of icy water coming over the sides.

“A large percentage of the public are not hugely enamored with the work they have to do. But they can watch these shows and think ‘Man, at least I’m not doing that.’ It’s perfect TV for what’s going on in our economy,” he said.

Baran also pointed out that the tough-job shows make excellent business sense, particularly for cable channels such as Discovery and the History Channel. They’re relatively cheap to produce, at least in comparison with scripted programming, and they appeal to a somewhat older demographic than shows such as Big Brother or Dancing with the Stars.

The shows also attract masculine audiences. The Discovery Channel reported last month that The Deadliest Catch ranked first in cable programming and third among all prime time shows for men aged 18-49.

The Deadliest Catch’s audience includes Baran, who said he finds it “visually fascinating” with the added element of danger to keep it exciting.

asmith@projo.com