We are seeking recent graduates for our 2022 traineeship programme. You will be assigned to one of the following two divisions within the Directorate General Economics according to business needs and your preferences.

The Business Cycle Analysis Division analyses and forecasts real macroeconomic developments in the euro area and its largest countries. This includes monitoring the business cycle, developing and using forecasting tools and analysing the main domestic demand components. The Division also assesses the euro area sector accounts and prepares external communications on business cycle developments. Together with other business areas, the Division conducts the Consumer Expectations Survey, which collects high-frequency information on the economic and financial behaviour of households in the euro area.

The Prices and Costs Division monitors, analyses and forecasts nominal macroeconomic developments in the euro area and its countries and sectors and assesses inflationary pressures from both a cyclical and a structural perspective. It also assesses inflationary pressures from the external environment and from domestic wage and profit developments, as well as the associated prospects, risks and uncertainties. It provides input into internal decision-making processes and external communications on inflation. The Division also contributes strongly to the Price-setting Microdata Analysis (PRISMA) Network, which aims to deepen the understanding of price-setting behaviour and inflation dynamics in the EU.

In your role as trainee, you will be part of our data support team responsible for preparing charts and presentations, conducting empirical analyses and enhancing analytical tools. You will work closely with our experienced economists.

The ECB is an inclusive employer and we strive to reflect the diversity of the population we serve. We encourage you to apply irrespective of age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, race, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or other characteristics.

Your role

As a trainee you will:

• contribute to the divisions’ regular internal and external products, for instance by preparing tables and charts for reports or PowerPoint presentations, in collaboration with other business areas;
• process, consolidate and transform datasets, and maintain and develop databases, in order to monitor inflation and real economic developments, also using microdata;
• support input to policy decision-making by conducting empirical analyses using data analysis, statistical and econometrics tools;
• contribute to enhancing analytical, econometric and forecasting tools;
• if you are assigned to the Business Cycle Analysis Division, you may contribute to the Consumer Expectations Survey, in particular by organising and visualising complex household survey data;
• if you are assigned to the Prices and Costs Division, you will support the analysis of wage and price inflation; you may also contribute to PRISMA, working with large datasets on prices from different sources including from web-scraping.

These positions offer you excellent opportunities to enhance your quantitative skills, work on analytical tasks and collaborate with experienced central bank economists. They also provide a unique opportunity to gain insight into analysis and policy within a central bank, as well as to further develop your career. You will be part of a multicultural team that strives for continuous innovation to make a positive impact on the lives of European citizens.

Qualifications, experience and skills

Essential: 

• a bachelor’s degree or equivalent in economics, statistics, data science or another relevant field;
• practical experience in working with databases, including preparing charts and tables for reports and presentations;
• practical experience in working with statistical and econometric software, such as EViews or Stata, or programming languages such as MATLAB, Python, R, Stata, SQL, VBA for Excel;
• an interest in underpinning policy advice by conducting applied economic analysis;
• a good knowledge of the MS Office package, particularly Excel and PowerPoint;
• an advanced (C1) command of English and an intermediate (B1) command of at least one other official language of the EU, according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

Desired: 

• a master’s degree or equivalent in economics, statistics or another relevant field, as well as a broad knowledge of macroeconomics;
• a solid background in econometrics (in particular, time series econometrics, econometrics of panel data and microeconometrics) or statistics and data science (for example web-scraping, text analysis or machine learning);
• practical experience in working with relational databases, using SQL and/or other big data analytic tools on Hadoop, Spark or similar big data frameworks;
• practical experience in using visualisation tools such as Tableau or creating interactive web applications using R Shiny;
• a good understanding of the economic issues related to the household sector, business cycle or price and wage developments.

You are curious and eager to learn and want to further develop your ability to analyse complex information. You are keen to collaborate with others, pursue team goals and learn from other people’s diverse perspectives. You strive to know and anticipate stakeholder needs and will signal any need for change and propose alternative solutions.

You are motivated to contribute to the ECB’s mission, to serve the citizens of the EU as a member of a public institution and to work with colleagues from all over Europe. You are keen to be part of our team and to use your skills and competencies to achieve the objectives of this position.

Who can apply

• Students, including PhD students, or recent graduates can apply for a traineeship.

All candidates should:

• be a national of a Member State of the EU or of an acceding country;
• be at least 18 years old;
• have completed at least a first cycle qualification (minimum bachelor’s degree);
• be fluent in English and in another official language of the EU.

Following their most recent qualification candidates should:

• have a maximum of 12 months’ professional experience;
• have been a trainee for no more than six months;
• not have been an ECB trainee or have worked for the ECB previously

Closing date: 18.11.2021

Further information

Traineeship of between three and 12 months in total, starting 1 January 2022 at the earliest.

Application and selection process

Further information on how to join us is available on our website.

The recruitment process for this position will include an online interview via WebEx.