Citizen soldiers start to work after they will construct a building

[Morvin]

Gathering resources isn't their primary activity.

[quantumstate]

This is by design. Tickets are not a suitable place for discussion so please raise this on the forum if you think it should be changed.

[feneur]

Gathering resource *is* one of their primary activities in the current design as quantumstate said. And since that is one of the most basic design decisions it isn't likely to change in the main game. Still, feel free to discuss it in the forums though, if nothing else there might be enough people who feel the same and you can create a mod together.