Hard work at home needing clean after river comes in (8)
I believe the answer is:
industry
'hard work' is the definition.
(being industrious)
'home needing clean after river comes in' is the wordplay.
'home' becomes 'in' ('he's home' can mean 'he's in').
'needing clean' becomes 'dusty' (something dusty needs cleaning).
'after' says to put letters next to each other.
'river' becomes 'r' (abbreviation for river).
'comes in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'in'+'dusty'='industy'
'industy' enclosing 'r' is 'INDUSTRY'.
'at' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for industry that I've seen before include "Steady application - to manufacturing?" , "Manufacturing enterprises" , "Commercial, manufacturing enterprise" , "Hard work" , "Branch of trade" .)