Where: Auckland University. Contact the Business Student Centre, ph (09) 373 7599 ext 87186 for information about admission and selection criteria, or visit www.auckland.ac.nz/admissions
Applications close: December for BCom students and BCom honours students starting the first semester; applications for the honours second semester close in March. The honours course has about 35 places.
Starting salary: Approx $36K upwards. Some roles include an incentive component on top of salary.
Career opportunities: Banking, public policy, forecasting, consulting, regulatory/competition analysis, local or central government, markets (FX and interest rates). Across the banks, employment for economists is steady, with a growing a demand in the public sector circles.
KEY POINTS:
Economists monitor economic trends, analysing and preparing forecasts. Job opportunities include banking, public policy, forecasting, consulting, local or central government and markets.
The ANZ Bank has five economists, based in the bank's dealing room floor. Dealers and their clients are the main customers. The economists have to makecalls and present a view when situations change or events happen.
This can involve digesting a data release and providing the implications of it to the dealers in the space of a few seconds, so they can trade on it.
Beyond the dealing room and corporate clients, there are also the bank's business units, businesses, investors, retail customers, farmers and homeowners wanting information.
As well as preparing research documents, a key part of the job is getting out and talking to people and giving presentations around the country.
The day starts at 6am, writing a report outlining major economic events that have occurred overseas overnight. This is usually dominated by events in the United States or Europe, and how the dollar reacted. The report goes out around 7.30am.
At 7.45am, there is a conference call, with the Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch dealing rooms, to discuss how events could move markets. Other tasks include core outputs such as a weekly economic update, quarterly forecasts and property publications that require considerable input. And there are previews, comments and reviews on developments when Statistics NZ releases information - on things such as growth, inflation and unemployment - to keep clients informed.
THE GRADUATE Philip Borkin, 26
Economist, ANZ Bank
Graduated December 2004
I did an undergraduate commerce degree at Auckland University and then, on top of that, I did an honours degree. It's a separate degree but, effectively, it's an extra year on top of your commerce degree. I also did a science degree to keep my options open.
When I came out of university, I started at New Zealand Treasury in Wellington, in one of the economics teams. That was a good foundation. They put you through a lot of training and you work with many intelligent people.
This position with ANZ Bank was a chance to broaden my career. The pace of work is faster, the perspective you take on things is different and the client base is different. I have been here a year now and I'm learning an incredible amount.
The analytical side of things is important and the degree definitely helps with that. The economics degree at Auckland involves a lot of research work, you have to either study data or be in the library reading over previous papers.
There are so many different options within the degree, even within the economics component. There were a few compulsory courses and then different options. You could get into econometrics and the data intensive work or into regulation or health economics where it's more policy-intensive. In your first years of the degree, you get an idea of what you're interested in, what you're good at and, in the later years, you specialise more. It was a good degree to know where you want to head when you leave university.
THE EMPLOYER Cameron Bagrie
Chief economist of ANZ Bank
Philip's a smart cookie. He worked for the Treasury, a reputable organisation that trains people well.
Economists need to have academic nous and also intuition. You need the combination of a good scientific or theoretical background but you need to be street smart as well.
We work in a fast-moving environment. His qualification demonstrates that he's got a high rate of learning. From there, it's a question of how we give him real-life experience.
