By Walt Hickey COBOL New Jersey needs programmers who know the 60-year-old language COBOL, which may be antiquated, but is also the programming language the Garden State’s unemployment benefits system is based on. Connecticut and four other states are forming a joint effort to recruit retired COBOL programmers to update their software, as the skill may not be taught much anymore, but it’s critical to all sorts of systems. Half the world’s banking systems run on COBOL,