Everyone knows it’s a really bad job market, especially when you see the latest figures from the Labor Department showing that some 2.3 million jobs have been lost since September.  And even though some executives believe that the demand for talent is going to grow in the next five years, that’s not particularly comforting if you are out of work right now.

It’s hard for most people to comprehend just how bad the job market really is, but here’s a good indicator that surprised me: The job market is so bad that an increasing number of people are turning to food-service jobs in an attempt to try to make ends meet.

“Lots of restaurant workers are lifers,” according to a story in The Dallas Morning News, “but the industry has always attracted a transient group, too—people between jobs or looking to supplement their income. With today’s economic meltdown, the restaurant life raft is rapidly filling with applicants from inside and outside the restaurant industry.”

“ ‘What we’re seeing is that recruiters are being deluged with résumés of overqualified people,’ said Joni Thomas Doolin, chief executive and founder of People Report, a Dallas restaurant research and consulting firm. ‘They’re applying in droves. We’re starting to see them coming from retailing, grocery, banking,’ ” she told the newspaper.

Although the restaurant business has been battered by the recession, the fast-food industry has done pretty well, in large part because of the “value menus” that are particularly appealing to cost-conscious consumers. In fact, fast-food giant McDonald’s just reported a 7.2 percent increase in comparable store sales in January.

I can’t imagine how bad my personal job situation would have to be to force me to go back to the food-service industry. I worked as a McDonald’s manager in college, and later, as a waiter at a restaurant at a resort hotel. Although I do have fond memories of those days, it’s not something I want to revisit anytime soon.

Fortune magazine wrote about this topic recently in a cover story titled “The New Jobless,” and it is a frightening snapshot of just how bad things are, and more important, what could face any of us tomorrow. And as much as I shudder to think about the circumstances that would push me to even contemplate applying for a job in the food-service industry, I keep coming back to my mantra of “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

If I were desperate enough, even my old job at McDonald’s might seem like a good thing. That’s just another indication of how bad the job market really is. When entry-level jobs are flooded with applicants who are overqualified and desperate for any kind of work at all, it tells you just about all you need to know about the terrible state of the American economy.

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