There was never any large-scale production in the various workshops of classical Athens. No workshop is known to have employed more than a hundred and twenty persons; and there were profitable ones which employed no more than twenty or thirty persons. The busiest workshops in Athens and the Piraeus were those that made pots, knives, lamps, beds, clothing, jewellery, leather goods, weapons, etc.

Most workshop owners were not Athenian citizens, as happened with the farming sector, where non-citizens did not have the right to own landed acres, even though they could rent land or do seasonal work as farmers. In the workshops there were probably more metics than citizens.

Workshop production may have been hit by the Dekelian War, but it was not as hard hit as were farming and the mines. Buildings and tools were safe behind the walls that guarded Athens and the Piraeus. Of course runaway slaves could go to the Lacedaemonian encampment: we are told by Thucydides that a large part of the runaways were 'specialist' craftsmen.

The curtailment of Athenian revenue in 413-403 B.C. resulted in a curtailment of the movement of various goods in the domestic market. There was an exception: the production of tools directly or indirectly connected with warfare. A feature of the period 431-405 B.C. - the years of the Peloponnesian War - was that the shipyards did well, as did workshops producing hoplite and ship gear.