Mainframe programming may be a name-your-salary position. Today, new programming students are not aware of mainframes, much less interested in learning COBOL. Old coders are retiring, if not dying.
The days of VAX/VMS are well over. There are a few old soldiers out there but it’s few and in between.
Myself, I’m into Visual Studio .NET 2010 Ultimate, which can do GUI automation, and I can code it in C#.
I make sure serious stuff doesn’t blow up now. Nuclear power, gas and oil refining, chemical processing, even certain foods (think liquid).