I graduated in Europe ten-ish years ago and even then I never came into contact with COBOL, and if the article is to be believed apparently there are a few more legacy systems here than in the US. I honestly doubt there are a lot of people under 40-50 who are proficient enough with these systems to work on government infrastructure

And what's wrong with hiring people over 40-50?

absolutely nothing, that was not my point. But people in the industry with that kind of experience are likely already in a spot where taking a job like that is a step back career wise, which is why it isn't surprising that they need to go as far as Latvia to find workers.

Money. They have actual experience and won’t work for minimum wage. Not saying it’s a good reason, but that was probably the logic employed here.

Children do not see difference between 40 and 90 year old. We are all the same to them.

I mentally chop adult age groups at 18, 21, 25, 40, 65, and 90. Within those groups, I don't really conceptualize any difference. Two clarifications: (1) this is talking about a single person, not a group, and (2) it's really more based on behavior than age; my grandma is in her eighties, but is so mentally sharp that I think of her in (the top end of) the 40-65 group.

We teach that it was a thing once. And that meteorologists still use it. The rest of my COBOL knowledge came from my dad :)

Why would meteorologists use COBOL? Wouldn't FORTRAN be more likely?

I can't find anything in Google, but if this was a game show and I had to guess, I'd say that the modeling is/was done in FORTRAN, but the reporting was done with COBOL.

Correction: I probably meant FORTRAN, thanks!

They didn't at mine when I graduated 11 years ago. Can't imagine they've added it since then.

They did at mine 15 years ago. Two semesters of it. Ugh.