This is the dirty secret, and I think it's largely because COBOL devs don't create that much value. What I mean is, those systems are in place, have largely wor

This is the dirty secret, and I think it's largely because COBOL devs don't create that much value. What I mean is, those systems are in place, have largely worked for years, and only need a bug fix here and there. For those, you can get some retired guy back as a contractor and it's still way cheaper than a dedicated COBOL dev. I don't think I know of anywhere that is writing big new projects in COBOL (I'd love to hear of counter-examples). Instead it seems like they've found ways of bolting on extensions as part of some middleware. So what's interesting instead is where are the rumours of a COBOL dev shortage coming from?