what about the job prospects?

I cannot give you a direct answer as I left employment over 15 years ago and have worked for myself ever since - I am now unemployable and that's the way it will stay...

What I would say is that Perl is so much more than just a scripting language. It is very capable at scripting but can be used to create standalone Windows applications with the TK modules or distributed client/server systems and everything in between. Learning Perl opens up many, many possibilities and makes learning other languages easier in future.

Perhaps a jobs site might give you an indication of the demand...