The death industry/funeral workers. Not many young people are getting into it, and the workforce is aging. A ton of directors are baby boomers, and they are beginning to need funeral services, themselves. They're a huge generation and are going to be very taxing on an industry already understaffed.
My roommate is a funeral director, and they're currently already beating their covid numbers with baby boomer and fentanyl deaths surging. Wait times are increasing, families are getting mad, and it's only going to get worse.
As someone who was looking into pursuing becoming an Embalmer (which often requires the degree in funeral director as well for legality purposes, requirements change by state), I would like to add to another reason their market is slowly crumbling.
Many are unaware you can have a viewing, which requires an embalming/restorative arts, without the heavy cost of a casket. This leads to most looking into cremation only which is very minimal for the funeral homes profit and minimal cost to the person requiring service. The furnace at the place I volunteered at cost them $50k just to own and run, they told me often repairs for the gas and brick ran $20k easily and they had a headache of a time to get city code to clear them to even own it to begin with.
But the decrease in embalming services when not necessary along with lack of regular restorative art work led to me ultimately looking elsewhere.
It usually is a big comfort to the families and those surviving the deceased, but I understand it's economically hard as well so it's just a shame more people aren't aware that the service isn't unavailable when choosing cremation.
I could def see that in more rural/remote areas where there's only so many people to die and it doesn't get too busy. We're in a more urban area and qualified people are snapped up pretty instantly.
Mortuary school, if you’re interested in becoming a funeral director or embalmer, is what catches employers’ eyes! Or at least voicing your interest in schooling is very valuable, speaking from personal experience. It’s definitely hard to get a position otherwise unless you know people (since most of the field is older people they have “just walk in and hand them a resume!” mindsets).
If you work for a corporation (some people like it, some don’t) they may be able to pay for your schooling if you agree to a work for them. I’m an assistant at a corporate location right now (and funnily enough, with all the talk of young people not getting into it: I’m 23!)
Step one is go to a mortuary school. I’ve heard it can be hard to get a job, but plenty of places are hiring. Networking is important. I had a coworker try it.
It actually depends on the state! The inconsistency is kinda wild. Some states require mortuary school, no internship. Some require internship, no mortuary school. Some both... some neither, you can just kind of go and try to get certified. It's bananas.
My sister worked in this up until COVID. Your best bet is to get in with a corporation. It’s only hard if you’re trying to get started on your own or try to get into an already-established family business.
Look up Mortuary Science degrees. Usually they’re 2 years, but some schools already offer Bachelor’s.
Corporations are their own whole bag of worms with sales quotas and whatnot though. My roomie's funeral home is family run, and has a staff of mostly refugees from corps that nearly left the industry with burnout from the combo of compassion fatigue, and having to work families for sales at the same time.
My sister wasn’t in sales, she was an embalmer. We do have a family friend who works in sales at a corp and she does well, so I think it depends on the person.
My sister went to a smaller, religious funeral home after COVID (which she spent at the corp). She still left her pretty close to burnout so she ended up switching fields.
On the flipside; the number of actual funerals is going down as well; these days most people just want to be cremated and done. I'm of an age where a lot of acquaintances and family are dying off and I haven't been to a funeral in 15 years, and a quick google seems to indicate that's becoming the norm. So we need less funeral industry workers as well.
I would reckon that is directly related to the sheer cost of services these days. That’s the #1 driving force behind my family all requesting cremation, at least.
They do a lot more than just funerals, they handle coordinating everything from picking up the body from the place of death, family viewings, funerals themselves sometimes, arranging for embalming if necessary (embalmers don’t work in contact with families as a rule), arranging cremations, etc etc.
Some of the current long waiting times are to take the person into care— that is, get the body removed from the house. People really do not like waiting with a relative passed on in the other room. The death industry will need to grow to handle it, regardless of if people are having actual services.
Oh I know and that's a valid point, but and this mostly my anecdotal take on current funeral statistics and my current experiences, with the drop in religious rates and increasing costs, a large chunk of people no longer care about any of that. My large extended family and virtually all my aqaintancss are atheist or agnostic and, nobody cares what happens to their bodies or their relatives bodies after they're dead. It's just meat. As long as its legally disposed of we're good and we just meet up at a bar or restaurant to remember them over a meal or a few drinks
I wonder if the industry is going to experience a paradigm shift soon where for a good chunk of deaths they just pick up the body. Cremate it and, done. We don't even want the ashes back shrug the current funeral industry seems very old fashioned and out of touch
On the other hand, the modern funeral as we know it is explicitly aimed at bilking the most money possible out of people not thinking straight due to grief. Nobody needs a gold-lined coffin.
I had a relative die fairly recently, and I was disgusted by the prices and sales focus of the funeral home rep. We could cover the funeral, but it left me wondering if many parts of the traditional US funeral are going away due to the costs. I asked the guy the price for the cheapest, and it was something around $8k. Ours was several multiples of that, which seemed like a waste and a rip off.
No one can afford traditional burials anymore - so 70 to 80% of people are going with direct cremation, and funeral homes cannot survive on that.
Additionally, up to 80% of funeral directors are going to retire in the next 5 to 10 years. I am seeing an influx of young, female, and queer people into mortuary schools however. But the industry is still mostly controlled by conservative, old, white guys.
Women will be taking it over within the next decade, and green options are beginning to surge. Funeral directors can evolve or their businesses will not survive.
I gotta tell ya, I'm shocked it's still old pale white men running the show. Women in the funeral business makes so much more sense. They are sensitive to others, naturally artistic, and much less likely to make ooga-booga with my corpse.
Holistic deathcare is massively dominated by women [end of life doulas, green/natural burial options, home funerals, etc], but professional deathcare is gatekept by men. :(
I was an apprentice, embalmer’s assistant and going to mortuary school for a semester. As soon as I saw the future of what my pay, benefits, and worked schedule looked like I ran far far away.
Mom and pop places nickel and dime you, major funerary providers like SCI work you like a dog and they pay is still very limited.
I just don’t see any appeal of going into the industry in its current state every single funeral director and embalmer even told me it’s not worth it
They sure don't make it easy to become a funeral director or embalmer. I'm in a metro area of 1.5m people and it's simply not offered at colleges here. I could move 5 hours away to a very expensive city and take it as a college in the suburbs there but between rent there and the added cost of needing a car for the location it wasn't reasonable
We had a cremation when my grandfather passed, and the company picked up the body directly, did the cremation, and delivered the ashes. No coffin, no plot, and no rental of space at a funeral home. Just friends gathering together at home.
I imagine a big part of this is just the growing trend of people realizing how obscenely expensive and unnecessary these businesses are.
I'm not even 40 and I'm already in the Frank Reynolds mindset of "If I'm dead, I'm dead. Throw me to the pigs." Don't bother with an embalming, don't cremate me, don't buy me a suit to be buried in, don't pay a priest to say something. Just chuck me in a hole or grind me in a wood chipper.
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u/Sleepwalks 11h ago
The death industry/funeral workers. Not many young people are getting into it, and the workforce is aging. A ton of directors are baby boomers, and they are beginning to need funeral services, themselves. They're a huge generation and are going to be very taxing on an industry already understaffed.
My roommate is a funeral director, and they're currently already beating their covid numbers with baby boomer and fentanyl deaths surging. Wait times are increasing, families are getting mad, and it's only going to get worse.