The crane index is not the only unusual economic indicator. Other strange measures include the Buttered Popcorn Index, the Super Bowl Indicator, and divorce rates.
Nationally, the construction industry employed 7.46 million people in 2018, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, continuing several years of increases. But it is still recovering from the last recession. In 2006, the number of workers was 3 percent higher, 7.69 million.
If hiring continues to climb, shrinking the labor pool, high project costs could get even steeper, Anderson said. That may finally force builders to pump the brakes. But “any change in the market wouldn’t probably show up until the end of the year,” he said.
The index is not the only unusual economic indicator. Other strange measures include the Buttered Popcorn Index, the Super Bowl Indicator, and divorce rates.
Jagdish N. Bhagwati, a professor of economics at Columbia University, said the number of gauges like these had multiplied since the 1980s, when The Economist magazine created the Big Mac Index, an informal comparison of the cost of hamburgers in different countries used to analyze exchange rates.
But the trends that shape the global currency system, Bhagwati said, are too complex to be reduced to single McDonald’s meal. Then again, boiling economics down to a pocketbook issue like popcorn may help consumers understand the underlying economic theory. “Sometimes being funny helps people focus on the things you want them to focus on,” he said.
The index includes only tower cranes, which rise 10 to 80 stories and have long booms that lift steel and concrete for projects like hotels, condominiums, offices, stadiums, convention centers, arts complexes and schools. This winter, the tally came to 423.
Typical real estate cycles run about eight years, Gurry said, but the current one, clocking in at 12 so far, still has legs. “Normally, I might be concerned to see so many cranes, because it might be a sign of overbuilding,” he said.
Counting cranes in Seattle and elsewhere can seem unscientific. Over a few days twice a year, employees of Rider Levett Bucknall set off by foot or in cars, eyes turned toward the horizon. If possible, they later check their results against building permits.
In Portland, Oregon, searches are helped by a tram across the city that climbs 500 feet in the air, said Kim Craigie, a counter for the firm who also works in marketing. “Once you start, you can’t not notice them,” she said.
An upgrade of the Oregon Convention Center, a twin-spired complex near the Willamette River, is one of the larger projects. Framing the sky are three cranes, two of them for a 14-story hotel that will open next winter and be run by Hyatt. The third crane swivels over a new parking garage.
Other cities where cranes are plentiful, despite signs of a global slowdown, are Los Angeles (44), New York (28) and San Francisco (29), according to the index, whose clients include construction, engineering, and architecture firms. If the analyses seem overly optimistic, that may have more to do with the health of those cities than the condition of the country, according to economists, who add that cranes are not likely to disappear anytime soon.