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For Java and C# I see an absolute ton of financial job postings but these tend to be for web service, database, or basic software infrastructure development. Interestingly there are some low-latency java jobs out there ... probably more than you would find for true numerical languages like fortran but less that C++ (not by much though). My feeling is that a lot of companies like out-of-the-box solutions with on-the-minute technical support (the kind given from Microsoft or Oracle). Therefore languages like Java and C# will always thrive under these conditions. I actually heard an expert from a panel of distinguished computer run-time gurus mention that we live in the "age of rapid application development". Many of the others agreed and most of them mentioned that what is really important nowadays is not sophisticated alien-like technology but rather "tools" that are easy for developers to use. Microsoft has championed this approach with their C# and perhaps F# going forward (since they both rely on .NET) while Oracle has championed this approach with Java. I'd think that in today's tough economic environment, low overhead costs would be very important for the survival of a business. But the fact remains that Java, and .NET are still way behind C++ and especially C and Fortran when it comes to speed and pure number crunching power. Even a sophisticated language like Common Lisp is said to be on par with Java in terms of speed, but none of these are modern day business languages b/c they simple don't have 1) a huge standard library and 2) Corporate-grade technical support. So any financial company employing such languages either have 1) a clear vision that speed is critical to their success, or 2) enough capital to 'experiment' with higher performance languages. A company without a clear vision, long-software development cycles, and low capital will quickly go out of business.