It is possible to create customs which allow null values. When nulls are present they can cause a NetExpress (Microfocus COBOL) program to error out with a SQLstate 22002 error. The error message "indicator variable required but not supplied" is less than helpful. There is however a Microsoft knowledge base article which explains the error in more detail. To workaround this issue in Oracle you can use the decode function in the select statement such that nulls are changed to spaces as shown below:
SELECT
EM_EMPLOYEE_ID,
decode(RATE_TABLE_GRADE,NULL,' ',
RATE_TABLE_GRADE) as rateGrade
. . .