Coronavirus pandemic exposes urgent need for programmers of a very old computer language

Ventilators, retired doctors, N95 face masks — all have been in high demand from heads of state and U.S. governors, but now you can add COBOL programmers to that pandemic response list.

That's right, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has a new request you might not have seen in the headlines: computer programmers adept in a decades-old programming language called COBOL. 

During these past two weeks, more than 362,000 New Jersey residents filed for unemployment due to the coronavirus pandemic. There was also a 1,600-percent increase in the state's unemployment claims during the first week of the outbreak as compared to the usual amount New Jersey receives. Its system is now being overloaded, with many requests still yet to go through. And that system is apparently built on COBOL. Read more...