Many years ago, I wrote about the dangers of using the "popularity" of a language (as measured by the number of Google hits) as a proxy for its importance, relevance, or value. People continue to use that metric because it is easy to obtain. On the other hand, the number of job listings is a relevant metric to use when assessing the value of a programming language. Many SAS programs that were written in the 80s or 90s continue to run and to be supported, even as the original programmers retire. Companies need SAS programmers to support legacy code in addition to writing new code, which adds to the demand for SAS skills.