PhD Traineeship in the Sector Accounts and Fiscal Statistics Section

Job Description

Type of contract: PhD traineeship

Who can apply?: EU nationals eligible for our traineeship programme

Grant: The trainee grant is €2,120 per month plus an accommodation allowance (see further information section)

Working time: Full time

Place of work: Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Closing date: 02.07.2025

Your team

You will be part of the Sector Accounts and Fiscal Statistics Section in the Directorate General Statistics. Our Directorate General has over 300 members of staff and works to strengthen Europe by supporting ECB decision-making with high-quality data and statistics.

In your role as a PhD trainee in the Sector Accounts and Fiscal Statistics Section, you will be part of a team of around 18 members of staff who are primarily responsible for developing, compiling and disseminating financial and non-financial sector accounts for the euro area and government finance statistics. We collect, validate and disseminate related data on EU Member States and national accounts items such as GDP, as well as provide services to users of sector accounts and fiscal statistics. We also coordinate the ECB’s contribution to further developing and harmonising these data internationally. You will work closely with colleagues from across the ECB, as well as with national central banks, Eurostat, national statistical offices and the international statistical community.

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 PhD trainee in the Sector Accounts and Fiscal Statistics Section you will:

• contribute to developing and producing distributional wealth accounts for the euro area by linking microdata from the Eurosystem’s Household Finance and Consumption Survey to household macrodata included in the financial accounts, and by investigating potential additional data sources related to households;
• prepare documents for meetings with experts from national authorities;
• develop and refine methods used to estimate distributional wealth accounts;
• maintain and improve the code used to produce distributional wealth accounts;
• collaborate with colleagues from the ECB and the European System of Central Banks responsible for analysing data, providing explanations of the compilation process and assisting with specific investigations;
• carry out a study of distributional wealth accounts and present the results at an internal seminar and/or to experts from national authorities.

This position offers you excellent opportunities to take part in conceptual, methodological and operational work on statistics in a policymaking institution. You will work independently under the guidance of a mentor and 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 master’s degree and at least two years of PhD studies in the field of economics, econometrics, statistics, mathematics, social sciences or another relevant field;
• a proven ability to code using R, Python, MATLAB, Stata or another programming language;
• experience dealing with large and complex datasets, such as survey data or microdata;
• a good knowledge of the MS Office package;
• 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:

• knowledge of national accounts (financial and/or non-financial) or related economic statistics (e.g. monetary, financial and external statistics or household surveys), and/or experience using such data in applied research or analysis;
• knowledge or experience of financial instruments and/or statistical methods, such as statistical modelling and inference or data extrapolation methods;
• experience using R for analytical purposes;
• good drafting skills and the ability to explain complex concepts in non-technical terms.

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 PhD traineeship of 6 months, with a possible extension to up to 12 months in total.

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

For additional information on this specific vacancy, you can speak to Linda Kezbere on +49 (0)69 1344 8837 between 10:00 and 11:00 on Tuesday, 23 June.

Application and selection process

The recruitment process for this position will include a remote written exercise in the pre-selection phase and – if you are invited to participate in the subsequent selection phase – an online interview.

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

Closing date: 02.07.2025

About the Organization

The ECB is the central bank for Europe's single currency, the euro. The ECB’s main task is to maintain the euro's purchasing power and thus price stability in the euro area. The euro area comprises the 16 European Union countries that have introduced the euro since 1999.