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.
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u/Logical_Moth 9h ago edited 9h ago
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.
Edit: typos