NEW YORK CITY-“Sluggish” is the word Cushman & Wakefield uses to describe economic recovery in the US since the recession technically ended in June 2009. However, it is a recovery nonetheless, albeit stronger in other key Americas nations than in the US.

The progress that the US and other Americas markets have made is comparable to that seen in Europe, where forecasts for 2010 overall have been upgraded lately, although there’s an increasing disparity between individual countries. Both regions, though, have been left in the dust by the Asia Pacific countries, according to C&W’s Economic Pulse reports for the three global regions, issued Tuesday.

Here in the US, “The story of the recovery so far, and it’s now about 15 months old, is that it’s better than the past two recoveries but not as strong as one would hope, given the depth of the downturn,” says Ken McCarthy, managing director of US research services, in a podcast discussion of the Americas report. C&W notes that the US began adding jobs earlier this time: about six months after the technical end of the recession, compared to 11 months after the 1990 downturn ended and 19 months from the bottom of the 2001 recession.