A young man from Olt county, who was earning 1,600 lei at the supermarket in the village, found a job in Brussels, in Belgium. He works for a Romanian company, and with the money he earns, he supports his entire family in Romania.
Romanians work far from their families photo: Pixabay
Journalists Elena Stancu and Cosmin Bumbuț made a series of reports, for HotNews, in the middle of a community of Romanians from the Diaspora, near Brussels. They recorded the extraordinary lives of ordinary people, economic migrants who work 10-11 hours a day away from their families to build a better life for themselves. For six months, the two journalists stayed in a trailer, near Brussels, alongside the 60 Romanian construction workers.
Huge construction sites appeared in Belgium, with hundreds of Romanian workers. For most of them, Belgium is not the first country they emigrate to.
One of them is Marius Bocai, 27 years old, from Rusănești, Olt county. From the money he earns in Belgium, the man supports his family in Romania, his 24-year-old wife and two-year-old daughter, his mother, who has worked all his life in agriculture, and his grandfather.
His family grows vegetables and grains, which he sells mostly to “wholesalers”, because he does not have time to take care of the garden and stand at the stall in the market, at the stall. Marius would have preferred to stay in the country, with them, but with the money earned in Romania, he is unable to manage.
At the age of 18, after finishing high school, Marius went to work in Spain growing tangerines with a neighbor. After five weeks, he returned to the country with 300-400 euros. In 2017, he got a job at a wiring factory in Caracal, where he earned 1,300 lei. When he entered the factory, an allergy appeared on his skin that made him scratch until he bled. It didn’t last more than a few weeks, according to HotNews.
He found work in the village as a carpenter, with an employer who promised to give him 1,800 lei a month on the cheap. He worked for four months, but was paid for only two. He then got a job at the supermarket in the village, where he had a work contract and earned 1,600 lei. He then left with Florina, his girlfriend, to work in England.
In 2022, after his daughter was born, Marius worked for a while in Germany, then got a job at the Roteam company in Belgium, led by the Romanian Cosmin Râță, where he has been working for two years.
It’s the best job he’s ever had and he’s financially content. Now earn 3,000-4,000 euros net per month, depending on hours worked. Marius is pushing hard, because he wants to bring his wife and daughter with him to Belgium, and he works 260-280 hours a month, according to the cited source.
