Most of the municipality's population lives in the city proper, with most jobs located in the manufacturing and commerce sectors here. About 250,000 hectares are under cultivation in the city's outskirts, most of which is near the coast. Crops include wheat, grapes, flowers, chickpeas, alfalfa and walnuts. Livestock has been traditionally important here, especially beef cattle. Pigs, sheep, goats, horses, domestic fowl and bees are also raised here as well. Fishing is practiced along with coast with shrimp being the most important catch.
Industry and manufacturing has been the most dynamic sector of the economy. Much of this began in the 1980s with the establishment of the automobile industry, specifically the Hermosillo Stamping & Assembly plant owned and operated by Ford Motor Company. Electronics and IT are the largest employers by both revenue and number of employees. Today, there are twenty-six major manufacturers, which generate about 68,300 jobs, employing about thirty percent of the population.
Other than cars, products manufactured here include televisions, computers, food processing, textiles, wood products, printing, cellular phones, chemicals, petroleum products and plastics. Lanix electronics has a major research and design facility and it's main manufacturing plant in Hermosillo. The city and its municipality have twelve industrial parks, which house over one hundred smaller manufacturing enterprises. There has been slowing of this sector especially the automobile industry because of the global economic downturn that began in 2008.
Commerce employs more than half of the population. While locally owned business still predominate this sector, international brands such as Costco, Wal Mart, Sams Club, The Home Depot, Cinemark, McDonald's, BlockBuster Video, Domino's Pizza, Dairy Queen, IHOP, Subway, Carl's Junior and others figure prominently at Northeastern Hermosillo and Southern Hermosillo. Tourism is mostly limited to the
