The European Central Bank has launched: Traineeships in the External Developments Division.

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Your team

You will be part of the Directorate General International and European Relations, which has 120 staff members. You will be assigned to a team in the External Developments Division, which analyses the global economic situation and economic conditions in key non-EU countries, such as the United States, United Kingdom and China. The Division also conducts simulation and scenario analyses related to the international environment and coordinates the global part of the ECB/Eurosystem staff macroeconomic projections. Current key analytical projects include work on international trade (including trade models), the post-pandemic economic recovery worldwide and modelling the global economy including climate risks.

In your role as trainee, you will be part of either the data management group, the global team or the modelling team. Each team contributes to these analytical workstreams and/or supports data management in the Division. 

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 perform one or more of the following tasks:

• providing research assistance for, and possibly co-authoring, analytical projects based on original empirical analyses;
• providing research assistance by building and maintaining modelling tools using advanced econometric programming skills;
• contributing to the Division’s products and processes for the data management group, which may include: 
  • assisting with data collection, programming tasks and analysis, as well as preparing presentations for senior policymakers; 
  • handling, maintaining and developing databases used to monitor global and country-specific monetary, financial and real sector developments, with a particular focus on developing the use of data visualisation tools;
  • contributing to analytical work by setting up and running statistical and econometric processes;
• for the global team:
  • contributing to the empirical analysis of international macroeconomic policy issues, including international trade topics;
  • assisting in the development of econometric tools and models used to support global economic analyses and short-term forecasting;
• for the modelling team:
  • contributing to scenario analysis and simulations regarding the international environment; 
  • participating in discussions about the international environment and the use of macroeconomic models to respond to key policy questions such as climate change; 
  • presenting key findings to relevant stakeholders within the ECB.

As a trainee you will work closely with highly qualified experts on different tasks and projects in the field of international macroeconomics, offering you valuable experience on which to build a successful professional career. You will also be assigned a mentor and 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, finance, statistics, data science or a related field;
• a sound understanding of international macroeconomics;
• experience in data management and handling multidimensional datasets;
• advanced knowledge of MS Office, in particular Excel;
• an intermediate knowledge of programming languages and econometric software (e.g. MATLAB, R, Stata, EViews, Python, SQL);
• 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, finance, statistics, data science or a related field (or a master’s degree in one of these areas in the final stages of completion);
• experience with state-of-the-art modelling tools and econometric techniques or data analytics, preferably in the field of global trade analysis or macro modelling;
• a keen interest in policy-relevant and applied research, together with proven ability to conduct quantitative analyses;
• experience with macroeconomic and financial market data service providers (e.g. Refinitiv/Eikon, Bloomberg, Haver Analytics) and data visualisation software (e.g. Tableau);
• a sound knowledge of statistical and econometric techniques for data analysis;
• for the global team: a sound knowledge of time series analysis such as Error Correction Models and VARs, knowledge of international trade models and familiarity with international trade data;
• for the modelling team: a sound theoretical background in New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models and experience with structural and/or semi-structural macroeconomic models, as well as proven experience in programming with MATLAB and Dynare and knowledge of VARs.

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.

Who can apply:

EU nationals eligible for our traineeship programme.

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: 03.06.2022

Further information

Traineeship of between 4 and 12 months in total.

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. 

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, based on which you might be considered for similar positions within the ECB.