Talent Thursdays: SiteNews expands with a labour focus

Key Takeaways:

• SiteNews’ newsletter is expanding with another weekly email, Talent Thursdays.
• It will feature popular topics around the ‘people’ part of construction, including professional updates, job postings, in-person events, labour data and more.
• The SiteNews team believes Talent Thursdays will streamline its existing newsletter and provide valuable insight for subscribers.

The Whole Story:

One year after launch, SiteNews is expanding to better fulfill its mission to equip, educate and elevate the Canadian construction sector.

To serve its thousands of newsletter subscribers and respond to industry trends, the digital publication’s team is launching a second newsletter blast, Talent Thursdays. The weekly email will spotlight everything to do with labour and professional development in construction.

It will feature weekly People Moves, which gives updates on hiring, promotions, retirements and awards. Subscribers will get data, studies and updates on the efforts to recruit, train and retain workers. It will also include Hot Jobs, a regular round-up of high-level construction job postings.

SiteNews stated that their own analytics show there is high demand for stories and content centered around people and their work. This includes job postings, personal achievements, in-person events and information on how to address the industry’s workforce challenges. 

With so much news and information coming out about Canadian construction, the team also wanted to make sure content is streamlined, focused and useful for subscribers.

“We’re really inspired by the sense of community we’ve encountered over the last year. The industry genuinely loves celebrating the people who bring these projects to life,” said Brett Rutledge, SiteNews co-founder.  “Construction isn’t just about buildings; it’s about the individuals and the relationships they form. This newsletter is a tribute to that human element.”

According to BuildForce Canada, overall hiring requirements in the industry are expected to exceed 299,000 by 2032 due to the retirement of approximately 245,000 workers (20% of the 2022 labour force) and growth in worker demand of more than 54,000. They are predicting a possible retirement-recruitment gap of more than 61,000 workers.

SiteNews editor Russell Hixson explained that getting enough skilled workers to meet construction demand has easily emerged as one of the industry’s biggest challenges. 

“It’s a complete misconception that anybody can walk onto a jobsite and do construction work. The complexity, size and performance requirements for the built environment are skyrocketing,” he said. “This requires sophisticated, skilled workers. These people take years and years to create and many workers with these skills are reaching retirement age.”

Hixson noted that as technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D printing, prefabrication and more become adopted, jobsites will require workers with even broader technical skills. 

To subscribe to Talent Thursdays and SiteNews’ weekly flagship newsletter for free, visit  here.