In 1995, there were more than 80 billion (billion, not million) SLOC (single line of code) developed in Cobol worldwide and in production. 80 billion! People thinking that you can get rid of these in the midterm are just….wrong 
A recent report claimed that 65 percent of core systems at surveyed companies in the insurance industry were written in legacy code, including COBOL. And a computer science prof I spoke with says the skills crunch is for real, with big iron outlasting the folks who know what to do with it.
Related: Vint Cerf says, “Over time the bits we accumulate that represent value will not be able to be interpreted. We have to maintain the meaning of the data we accumulate.”
I am working in the Insurance Industry for a while and I personally think that much more than 65% of the legacy systems are written in Cobol… My perception is that we are near a 80-85% level, at least… Perhaps more the case in Europe? Could be!
From: http://www.computerworld.com/comments/node/9062478?page=8
I am a fairly recent graduate, and guess what I got my first job as a COBOL
developer. I have been a COBOL developer for three years since graduating.
I can truly say I wish I stayed away from COBOL and so should all you recent
graduates.
It really doesn’t matter whether or not there are 70 billion lines of COBOL
and all that other stuff; if you can’t get a job in this area (trust me I’ve
been looking). All you have to do is type COBOL in a job search (and there
we have it – the last time I got 100 hits) – “COBOL IS DEAD” if you want to
get a job. When you narrow down your search to say London and you only get
about 12 hits – so if you want to work as a software developer stay away
from COBOL.
It really doesn’t matter if some developer says “COBOL is not dead, I’ve
recently got a job in COBOL”. These people probably been programming in
COBOL for a life time (that’s like 25 years) so you are competing with these
guys for those handful of jobs.
It really doesn’t matter if one says “there will be plenty of jobs when
these old people retire and a company will give you loads of money if you
have COBOL experience”. They may give people with COBOL skills loads of
money to fix a bug but how often do these bugs cause faults (remember if its
working don’t touch it). So you maybe sitting unemployed for years before
anything goes wrong, waiting for your one off big contract payment (sounds
like too much of a risky investment).
Anyway I’ve been looking for work out their and finding it very hard (almost
impossible) to find a job. I am a First Class graduate and have a Masters
and even with these academics three years of doing COBOL has crippled my
chances. I wish I had not done COBOL and stayed with the skills (what you
should be learning at university) that have jobs. I have got 3 years COBOL
and someone has 3 years of Java or C or C# etc.. so I am out of the
competition when looking for jobs. Don’t listen to those that say it don’t
matter what the language is (because it does), all you have to do is look at
the job specs (they generally mention the programming language because it
really does matter).
I am now hoping to build on those skills at university and then will keep
trying to apply for jobs. I am also hoping to do some courses to refresh my
knowledge in areas I have neglected over the last three years (which from my
experience you don’t get from COBOL and my opinion is this language should
not be taught at university). Certainly its IT and you have too keep up
with recently skills set (that’s RECENT!! skills set), but why get into the
position I am in and many (I hope not too many) recent graduates may be in.
I know this is very negative and may not read well, but COBOL has made it
very difficult for me to forward my career and I really don’t want this to
happen to any other graduate.
Basically “COBOL is truly dead” if you look at it from the perspective of
your career. Go out there, do the research and see the truth for yourself !!
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Also looking it to this this guy is correct “WHRE ARE THE JOBS!!”
I will not be taking a course with has COBOL part if it.