Notes:

Electricity: Lots of downtime, useful to have good secondary work skills.

Kindling: Kindling has downtime in the end game, good work skill for Applied Technique Books. Until you have maxed Kindling Pals pure kindlers are fine.

Gathering: Frostallion Noct is Nocturnal and has a breeding chain for passives. Gathering Lv increases crop yields. See Plantations.

Mining: Astegon is Nocturnal and mining doesn’t have downtime. Other options do a temporary work skill then return to mining.

Planting: Prunelia ends up beating Lyleen even without books due to the Partner Skill when condensed and with decent work speed buffs.

Watering: Jormuntide breeds into Jormuntide Ignis for Kindling if you want less breeding. Ghangler is a great new option that is easy to catch in the mid game. With work books Jellroy and Jelliette are the fastest workers in the end game.

Medicine: Not used much. Any pal is fine really.

Handiwork: Lots of downtime, looks for the secondary work skills that you need most for each base.

Lumbering: Not very important late game. Just having Shroomers for the Sanity effect from the Partner Skill is fine even without work books.

Cooling: Lowest priority so secondary skills will override cooling without the monitoring stand. (A Bastigor will never go cool if mining/lumbering is on)

Transporting: Varies with base layout. With chests next to work stations Runspeed is best. With travel between chests and stations Transport Speed and size become more important. See Transport Pals.