Fruit mostly employed after I departed (5)
I believe the answer is:
apple
'fruit mostly employed after i departed' is the definition.
'apple' can be an answer for 'fruit' (I've seen this before). I'm not sure about the 'mostly employed after i departed' bit.
'fruit mostly' is the wordplay.
'fruit' becomes 'apples' (I've seen this before).
'mostly' means to remove the last letter.
'apples' with its last letter removed is 'APPLE'.
(Other definitions for apple that I've seen before include "Orchard fruit" , "Fruit from Eden?" , "The - Cart (Shaw)" , "Fruit with pips" , "eg Cox, Bramley" .)