Your team We are seeking recent graduates for our 2024 traineeship programme. You will be assigned to the Prices and Costs Division in the Directorate General Economics.

The Prices and Costs Division monitors, analyses and forecasts inflation in the euro area as a whole as well as in individual countries and sectors, and examines its cyclical and structural drivers. It also assesses inflationary pressures stemming from the external environment and domestic wage and profit developments, as well as the associated prospects, risks and uncertainties. The Division provides input into internal decision-making and policy processes and external communications on inflation, as well as enhancing data to better measure and understand wage and price-setting dynamics in the euro area.

You will join the Division’s Data team, where you will work closely with our experienced economists and will contribute to preparing presentations, conducting empirical analyses and enhancing analytical tools.

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 Division’s regular internal and external products (including the Economic Bulletin and macroeconomic projections), 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 and visualisation tools, in order to monitor inflation and real economic developments, also using microdata; - conduct empirical analyses using data analytics and statistical and econometric tools to support policymaking bodies; - contribute to enhancing analytical, econometric and forecasting tools; - support the analysis of wage and price inflation, for example by (i) contributing to the further development of the ECB’s wage tracker (building on micro-level data on wage agreements) and/or (ii) helping to analyse price-setting, working with large datasets based on different sources (including web scraping).

This position offers you excellent opportunities to enhance your quantitative and programming skills, work on analytical tasks and collaborate with experienced central bank economists. It is also a unique opportunity to gain insight into a central bank’s analysis and policymaking, which will be of great value in your future 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 higher in economics, statistics, econometrics, mathematics, data science or a related field; - practical experience of working with complex datasets, including experience of preparing charts and tables for reports and presentations, and ensuring the quality of data; - practical experience of statistical and econometric analysis using programming languages such as MATLAB, R, Python, SQL and VBA for Excel and/or statistical and econometric software such as EViews and Stata; - 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 in economics, statistics, econometrics, mathematics, data science or another relevant field; - a broad knowledge of macroeconomics; - a solid background in econometrics (in particular, time series econometrics, panel data econometrics and microeconometrics) or statistics and data science (e.g. web scraping, text analysis or machine learning); - practical experience of working with microdata; - practical experience of working with relational databases using SQL and/or big data analytics tools in Hadoop, Spark or similar big data frameworks; - practical experience of using visualisation tools (e.g. creating interactive web applications using products such as R Shiny and Tableau); - knowledge of version control software (e.g. Git); - a good understanding of economic issues relating to wage and price 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 aims of this position.

Further information Initial traineeship of 6 months, with a possible extension of up to 12 months in total. The earliest possible start date will be 1 June 2024.

Other details on the conditions applicable to traineeships at the ECB can be found on our website.

Application and selection process The recruitment process for this position will include an online interview.

Further information on how to apply is available on our website.

If you are not selected for this position but are still considered suitable, you will be placed on a reserve list for 12 months from the closing date for applications, from which you might be considered for other traineeship positions within the ECB.

Apply now

Added 4 months ago - Updated 4 months ago - Source: ecb.europa.eu