Banks and their outsourcers for the year-2000 computer problem are apparently not yet hard-pressed enough to hire in great numbers the available legions of older, retired programmers.
But William Payson, head of SeniorStaff, which maintains a national data base of about 10,000 such experts older than 50, said he expects demand will grow along with anxiety as the year-2000 deadline comes ever closer.
"There is an army out here that's not being tapped into," Mr. Payson said. "Most people who hire programmers are notoriously prejudiced against older people. They think anybody over 35 is over the hill."
Only 1% of the old hands in SeniorStaff's data base have been hired.
These people tend to be skilled COBOL programmers. And it is code written in the COBOL computer language dating from the 1960s that is giving year-2000 task forces fits today, mainly because it registered years only by their last two digits. The "00" in 2000 could just as easily be interpreted by a computer as 1900.
Banks and others are not dipping into this pool of talent because they are either unwilling or unable to meet the prospective workers' demands, Mr. Payson said.
Five out of every six of them would prefer to telecommute, and most are uninterested in full-time work.
"They are willing to do their lot, but no matter how much you offer to pay them they are not about to go to downtown Chicago to work in an office building and live in a hotel," Mr. Payson said.
