One thing is true, it had a lot of advantage over other languages for a lot of years. However, now in 2018, other languages have also evolved and gained a lot of traction. One example is javascript/node which is now being used more and more. For a lot of time, a lot of frontend focused developers didnt really want to try backend development... specially because backend development was usually done in another language which was not javascript. So some never really attempted to do backend development. However when node was released, that opened a lot of new opportunities for the front end developers.
There are a lot of languages these days and many of them are capable enough to do many types of projects.
The important thing is, some languages have a bigger concentration of more capable engineers. One of these languages is perl. The perl programmers are excelent. They have real close experience with the kernel and systems and usually have great experience in complex backend tasks. Many are not as great with front end development. Some are.
Some projects can be done and deployed by 1 single perl developer. The same project if done in java for example might require more than 1 java developer.
The microsoft language creates a bubble and their developers sometimes dont know universal technical terms, they only know the microsoftish terms. Ie. they might not know what a "web server" is, but they know what "IIS" is. They might now know what a "hash" is, but they know what a "dictionary" is. Perl developers use universal terms.
Amazingly, javascript, especially ES6 is looking more and more like perl. Those that know both will agree sometimes it reminds of perl.
There are many projects people dont know about that use perl behind the scenes. But of course there are not as many perl programmers as there are in other languages and thats one reason you dont hear much about these projects.
Companies embrace more and more the modern perl development. Java, microsoft, node, python, ruby, etc are more popular of course. Specially because a lot of banks use java and they push java via universities. In the past I have seen labs with SUN machines on universities that teach Java. Microsoft also gives students free software licenses via universities. Thats another reason Microsoft and Java are very popular.