While the report indicates last year's pace of deterioration did not match that of the '01 recession, in which availability rates rose by 320 basis points in a 12-month period, it predicts the current downturn will surpass the previous three recessions in duration and severity. Making all this bad news worse, says TWR senior economist Laura Stone Mortimer, is that the bottom is still a ways off.

"With our estimate that we are just over halfway through this recession in terms of job losses, prospects for weak industrial demand extend well into 2010," she says. "It will be quite a while before the economy can begin its recovery and employers once again add to their payrolls. Under these assumptions, we expect absorption to decline through 2010 and availability to exceed its 2003 peak of 11.7%."