AILSA CHANG, HOST:
A 60-year-old programming language is at the heart of delays for millions of people applying for unemployment. The language is called COBOL. Lots of state unemployment systems run on it. And now those states are hunting for veteran coders who know their way around it. NPR's Bobby Allyn reports.
BOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: Situated in North Texas in what he calls up here in horse country, Bill Hinshaw's phone has been ringing nonstop.
(SOUNDBITE OF PHONE RINGING)
BILL HINSHAW: Cobol Cowboys, this is Bill.
ALLYN: Cobol Cowboys - that's the name of the group that 78-year-old Hinshaw runs. It has a list of some 350 IT veterans around the country who know how to use this 1960s computer language. So states are turning to Hinshaw.
HINSHAW: Basically, when Cobol Cowboys gets most of its calls, it's on an urgent SOS.
ALLYN: Such a distress signal was sent by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy at a press conference earlier this month.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
PHIL MURPHY: Not only do we need health care workers, but given the legacy systems, we should add a page for cobalt computer skills because that's what we're dealing with.
ALLYN: He meant to say COBOL - C-O-B-O-L - but it's from the Eisenhower era, so cut the governor some slack. The dusty software language has recently prompted not just New Jersey, but also Connecticut and Kansas to search for COBOL coders. IBM announced free COBOL training seminars to bring young computer whizzes up to speed. Hinshaw says it isn't hard to learn if you're willing to time travel.
HINSHAW: It's like hopping off of a bicycle in 1960 and climbing onto a Harley Davidson in 2020.
ALLYN: At the same time, countless state governments still use COBOL for unemployment systems and a lot more. Nearly half of U.S. banking systems rely on it.
HINSHAW: I mean, it's running the world. Ninety-five percent of all card swipes, including the ATMs, touch COBOL at some point.
ALLYN: All of this leads to a very natural question - why haven't any of these systems been updated?
JOHN THOMAS FLYNN: These systems are 3-, 400 million-dollar applications to modernize.
ALLYN: That's John Thomas Flynn. He faced a similar shortage of COBOL coders when he led California's IT department in the late 1990s right before the Y2K meltdown. Even after that, COBOL wasn't replaced. He says governments don't want to make it a priority, and they get really nervous just thinking about replacing systems.
FLYNN: Some people just feel that, well, maybe we should just put it off and let the next administration do it.
ALLYN: State officials in New Jersey say 3,000 people have now filled out applications to assist with COBOL coding, so that should fix their problem. Meanwhile, in North Texas, Hinshaw says he's always happy to connect government agencies with coders like himself.
HINSHAW: I will write my last line of COBOL the day before I die.
ALLYN: Because somewhere, a mainframe is failing, and Hinshaw wants you to know he knows a COBOL cowboy who can help.
Bobby Allyn, NPR News, San Francisco. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
