Ironically, Geremio is killed early on in the novel, shortly after he prays to God. While dying, he calls out to God to no avail:

Show yourself now, Jesu! Now is the time! Save me! Why don’t you come! Are you there! I cannot stand it—ohhh, why do you let it happen—where are you? Hurry hurry hurry!

The novel shows that God isn't there when he is needed.

While most of the Italian immigrants are devout Roman Catholics, the novel shows the Church to be corrupt and largely insensitive to the pressing physical needs of its poor congregants.

For example, the young Paul, seeing his mother and younger siblings starving, goes to visit Father John, the Irish priest, for help. Here, the lavish table at which the priest eats a hearty meal is a contrast to the miserable, hungry conditions in Paul's crowded tenement apartment. The priest, however, will not help the boy beyond giving him a big slice of cake, which will hardly feed his large family.

The immigrants hope the jobs they get will provide salvation for themselves and their families, but the pay is too low and the price too high. The word "Job" alludes not only to the worksite but also to the biblical book of Job. In that book, one of the darker and more questioning books of the biblical canon, the hardworking upright Job is, because of his goodness, subjected by Satan to a multitude of torments. It is not hard to see a parallel between what Job suffers and the suffering that "Job" extracts from the immigrants. The immigrants cannot look to the capitalist system's jobs any more than they can look to the Church for salvation. The system doesn't care about them. di Donato's imagery captures the dehumanizing elements of the industrial workplace and depicts Job as a devouring beast-master:

Ratatatatatat - ratatatatatatatattt

Hal-lloooo?

Send up the fourfoot angleirons!

Noise! noise O noise O noise and sounds swelling in from the sea of city life without of pushing scurrying purring motors and horns and bells and cries and sirens and whistles and padded stream of real feet O noise O noise—O noi-se and through Job mouths stretch wide screaming:

I want brick!

I want tile!

I want the scaffolder!

I want mortar!

I want speed I want rush I want haste I want noise I want action

I want you all of you to throw yourselves into Job!

They are true saints who need to appreciate each other and band together in solidarity. However, while Paul catches glimpses of this, having lost his religious faith, he unwillingly puts his faith in the Job.