During the past year, more and more young people around Finland have been able to get to know the construction industry through events, visits to construction sites and educational institutions, and social media campaigns. RT's attraction work also started new projects such as Business Villages, an ambassador program, and a TikTok channel aimed at young people, which was launched at the end of the year. The summary report reviews the highlights of the attraction work.
Joint Yrityskylä activities between different industries launched for the first time
High school students were able to lead the operations of the fictional Rakenna tulevaisuutta Oy in five different locations. The Business Villages of RT and its member companies Hartela, Are, Caverion, YIT, Peab and Kerabit reached a total of 2,500 players. INFRA's Business Villages have been in operation for several years.
Over 700 young people participated in the Open Worksite Days
Open Construction Sites Days are aimed primarily at 8th and 9th graders. Young people get to see construction sites, companies and vocational secondary education in different parts of Finland. This year, the days were organised in 16 different locations around Finland, and over 700 young people participated. On the last Open Construction Sites Day of the year, young adults from the Vantaa Handicraft Workshop got to know construction training at the Vantaa Vocational College Varia and visited the Peab construction site in Helsinki.
Raksa TET week received great feedback from young people
The Children and Youth Foundation organized the Raksa TET week in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area in September. 50 young people were able to visit construction sites and offices in the industry under the leadership of GRK Suomen, Jatke, YIT, Peab Industri and WSP Finland. RT participated in the week's arrangements. Young people gave excellent feedback about the Raksa TET week: 92 percent of the participants said that their interest in the industry had increased and almost half believed that they could find a future profession in the construction industry. The young people gave the week an incredible 9,1 as their overall rating.
In addition, RT organized a separate Raksa-TET week in Vantaa, where 30 young people learned about the construction industry at Varia Vocational College and various construction sites.
The ambassador program pilot started at the end of the year
The ambassador program is mainly aimed at young people studying at vocational schools, but there are also a few students from polytechnics. The young people involved in the program visit secondary schools to talk about studying in construction and to present the diverse opportunities in the construction industry. The ambassadors who are now involved have received an orientation and will start touring secondary schools in early 2026.
In the spring, we competed in the Taitaja9 event – RT was one of the main partners
The Taitaja event, held in the spring, continues to inspire young people to learn about handicrafts and study the field. In connection with the event, a Taitaja9 competition aimed at middle school students was also organized, in which RT was one of the partners. In the final, it was exciting to see how the young people, for example, did in a first aid task and managed to assemble a seesaw. The tight competition was ultimately won by Ilmarinen School's Terävät naulat (Sharp Nails) team.
A variety of events for both young and old
The Rakennusalalle.fi stand was visible at numerous different events. The attraction team visited five educational events, which reached a total of 2500 young people. In addition, tutoring sessions were held for approximately 250 young people.
In addition, RT participated in six larger events. A total of approximately 98,000 young people visited these events. Approximately three thousand young people visited the construction industry stands.
In addition to young people, an important target group for attraction at work are apprentices.
We reached a record number of OPOs this year. Approximately 340 OPOs participated in events organized by RT around Finland. At the national OPO Days earlier this year, 200 OPOs visited our stand to learn more about our industry. In addition, this year, 800 OPOs were sent current news from the industry in the form of a newsletter.
Increasing the attractiveness of the construction industry is one of the key themes in RT's strategy and action plan.
Attraction communication in a nutshell
- A joint search campaign on TikTok at the beginning of the year, where artificial intelligence avatars Vilma and Joel talked about the construction industry. Read the news
- In the summer, 11 young summer interns from member companies participated in the Young Artists in Action Instagram campaign. Seuraa meitä Instagramissa
- The TikTok channel was launched at the end of November. The first videos are from the summer's Young Artists videos. Click on TikTok
- A TikTok-driven joint application campaign will begin at the turn of the year, encouraging young people to study in the field. The young social media faces of 12 member companies will tell stories about the construction industry through videos. The campaign starts on 15.12. Read the news
- Approximately 30 news and articles were published on the Rakennusalalle.fi website and approximately 50 attraction-related posts were published on RT's social media channels. Take a look at the rakennusalalle.fi website
- At the end of the year, the Duunitor RSS feed was published on the Rakennusalalle.fi website, which brings together job openings and summer jobs in the industry in one place. Click on the summer job page
More information
Janne Suntio
Project manager
janne.suntio@rateko.fi +358 50 449 7559Construction industry training center RATEKO
Sari Perento
Communications Specialist (Attraction Communications)
sari.perento@rt.fi +358 40 561 6728Confederation of Finnish Construction Industries (CFCI)