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April 12, 2020 01:34 pm

Cobol Programmers Heed the Call to Support America's Overloaded Unemployment Systems

Earlier this week Slashdot reader puddingebola shared a CNN story headlined "Wanted urgently: People who know a half century-old computer language so states can process unemployment claims..." But now IEEE Spectrum reports that "Cobol programmers in the United States are heeding the call to work on antiquated state unemployment benefits computer systemsâ¦"The new claims brought the three-week total to more than 16 million, the equivalent of a tenth of the U.S. workforce. The spike in new claims has inundated benefits computer systems in states such as Connecticut, Florida, and elsewhere, some of which haven't updated their Cobol-based mainframe systems in years, or decades... New Jersey isn't alone. Florida's unemployment claims system has been so overwhelmed, the state is reverting to using paper applications. Massachusetts deployed more than 500 new employees to work remotely to meet increased demand that has overloaded its unemployment system... Connecticut's labor department is bringing back retirees and using IT staff from other departments to upgrade its 40-year-old system, which runs on a Cobol mainframe and connected components. One company that says it reached out to New Jersey was the Texas-based "Cobol Cowboys" placement agency, with nearly 350 contractors, including a man in his mid-80s "who did some work with Grace Hopper." Also helping is U.S. Digital Response, a new group hoping to find skilled volunteers with technical skills for government agencies. The article notes estimates that Cobol still handles 95% of all ATM swipes and 43% of banking systems.

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