COBOL: The “The Walking Dead” of IT (or the engine you don’t have the courage to turn off)

If you watched Star Wars: A New Hope in the cinema, in downtown São Paulo, you probably learned to program with this relic from the photo: the COBOL Primer. I have my copy and I confess: I have an ambiguous relationship with it. I loved COBOL, but I believe everything has its time.

The problem is that COBOL’s “time” seems to be infinite. While the market chases the latest AI hype, the core where the money really circulates is crying out for help.

“Is COBOL dead?” A grave mistake. Sit down and let’s talk about real numbers (and not consulting slides):

The Explosion of Job Openings (The Real Data):

In the last 90 days alone, the global market has opened between 6,000 and 8,000 jobs for “COBOLers.” Today, it is estimated that there are up to 25,000 open positions worldwide.

Where is the money? 40% in the US, followed by the UK, France, Germany, India, and… Brazil.

The Job Title Trap: The vacancies are camouflaged. No one posts “Job for a Cobol Guy” anymore. The name is now “Mainframe Modernization Engineer” or “Software Engineer – Financial Systems.” But in the prerequisites? There is our old friend. (Source: Dice.com).

Why won’t the “80-year-old Yoda” retire?

Giving Up on the “Big Fall”: Many companies have tired of trying (and failing) to migrate their core banking systems to Java or Go. The strategy has changed: instead of killing COBOL, they are creating API layers (z/OS Connect, for example) to link the Mainframe to the Cloud. It’s the old world serving the new.

The Retirement Apocalypse: The “Golden Generation” is hanging up their boots (I can see my turn coming…). This has created an absurd knowledge vacuum. Companies are being forced to hire new blood to learn what a PIC 9(14) is before the last expert turns off the lights.

The “Alphanumeric CNPJ Effect”: Remember my post about the CNPJ? Well, tax reforms in Brazil and new banking rules in Europe (like PSD3) require messing with legacy code. If the validator is in COBOL, you need a code surgeon, not a JS Framework general practitioner.

The Hard Reality:

Getting COBOL out of production has been a “priority” for 20 years. But the math is cruel:

85% of credit card transactions in the world still pass through it.
There are over 800 billion lines of code in active use.

While “modern” IT discusses which frontend library to use, the silent engine of the global economy is asking for optimization and people who understand true bit twiddling.

And you? Are you ready to face the legacy, or will you wait for the system to “abend” because there is no one left who knows what a PERFORM UNTIL is?

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