Comment by DebtDeflation

The surge in demand is being driven almost entirely by state unemployment systems. Most of these systems haven't seen a surge in unemployment claims since the 2009 recession and haven't had to change the underlying rules governing eligibility in even longer. Once the systems are patched and/or the surge in new claims subsides, 90% of this sudden demand for "Cobalt programmers" will evaporate. It's one thing for retired mainframe programmers to come out of retirement and work as consultants for a few months, it's quite another to start changing CS curricula nationwide along with launching mainframe bootcamps for career changers. I'd urge caution.