The Perl jobs are out there: you just have to be willing to take them. Like any other job, you have to go where the job is. I know one Perl shop in Chicago is constantly looking for new hires, and Google, Amazon, and Yahoo are looking for Perl programmers. The Perl Jobs list has a steady stream of posts.

Perl gets a lot of media time. It's not as much as Java, but it's a lot more than most other languages. Most people in the industry, including HR types, know that Perl (or PERL or Pearl or something that rhymes with hurl) exists. Ask them about Ruby or Python and see if you get a reaction. It's not that Perl is losing stature, but it's virtually matured into the venerable position of C, and no one seems to be worried that C is going to disappear. I see Perl in a lot of places, but because it was useful for a particular part of a problem, not necessarily because the people wanted to give Perl center stage, and I think that's good.

If you want some resources, check out the Perl advocacy mailing list, O'Reilly's Perl Success Stories, The Perl Journal, The Perl Review, The Perl Foundation, Yet Another Perl Conferences, Perl.com, CPAN, and it's activity level, Perl Mongers, and The Perl Home Page. No other open source group has it pulled together like the Perl community. Despite recurring myths of its demise, Perl is rather healthy and relevant.

On the other side, you also need to see Dave Cross's "Why Perl Advocacy is a Bad Idea", Nat Torkington's "Be an Advocate not an Asshole", and Mark Jason Dominus's "Why I Hate Advocacy".