The people of Edo state are mainly engaged in subsistence and cash crops farming. A number of them are also into poultry, piggery and fishing.

Many skilled and unskilled workers are employed by local, state, federal agencies around the state. The industries and private entrepreneurs also employ a sizable proportion of the total workforce in the state. Many Edolites are self-employed in various trades like carpentry and furniture-making, shoemaking, watching-repairing, driving, motor mechanic, welding and panel-beating, bronze-casting carving, tailoring, catering and hostelling and petty-trading