As a rare funeral drama in China, " Sanyue has a new job " can be said to have touched my tears recently.
The play tells the story of Sanyue, an unemployed girl born in the 1995s. After being kicked out of the house by her mother, she came to the funeral parlour to work as a makeup artist for her corpse under the introduction of her aunt.
From being ignorant and unknown when she entered the industry, to her insights after witnessing the stories of life and death, Sanyue was touched by death and began to think about the meaning of short life.
But in reality, the topic of funeral home work is not new. Before
, high-paying rumors such as " Shanghai funeral home recruiting corpse workers with a monthly salary of 40,000 8", " Shanghai funeral home recruiting 20,000 ", " Shanghai crematorium recruiting 1300 a day " and other high-paying rumors circulated on the Internet. Although
immediately refuted the rumors by the official media and some practitioners showed up, but the topic of the rumors about the high salary of the undertaker has never stopped.
When it comes to funeral homes, the same problem exists in the US job market, which is that there are not enough people working in the funeral industry.
And in recent years, the problem seems to have improved.
With the severe shortage of workers in the American workforce, more and more job seekers are turning their attention to the funeral service industry, and universities with funeral majors are also favored by more students. Worsham College of Mortuary Science, founded in 1911, is a veteran funeral school in the United States.
The most popular major in the school is Funeral Service and Funeral Science , which requires 1-2 years of study time, and the average annual tuition fee is 15,000 USD.
Image source Reilly McMurrow, program director of Warsham College's official website
, said that there is a serious shortage of labor in funeral homes in the United States. Graduates of related majors have an employment rate of more than 90%.
According to the American Board of Funeral Services Education, in 2021, the number of new students enrolled in accredited funeral science programs in the United States will increase by 24% compared to 2020.
Randy Anderson, president of the National Funeral Industry Association (NFDA), is acutely aware of the labor shortage.
Even if the number of new students increases year by year, it cannot meet the high demand for manpower in the funeral industry at a fast enough speed.
He believes that the funeral industry has a particularly high demand for practitioners, customers value professionalism and etiquette knowledge, and the aging workforce forces the industry to race against time.
There will be more than 18,800 funeral homes in the U.S. in 2021, most of them private small businesses, down from 19,020 in 2010.
The funeral industry in the United States has been in a state of inconsistency. More than 60% of funeral home owners said that they will retire in 5 years. This industry also urgently needs a group of newcomers to replace those who have worked for many years and are about to retire.
More young women join the funeral industry
According to the latest data from the American Board of Funeral Service Education (AFBSE), women make up 72 percent of funeral service education graduates.
The funeral industry was dominated by men until the 1970s, and every 10 years since then, the number of women entering the industry has steadily increased, and it has also tended to be younger.
McMurrow agrees with this trend. He said that at Warsham College, the student body is dominated by women aged 24 to 29. Most of them are social people who want to switch career paths.
Women have a natural advantage in this industry. They are more empathetic, more compassionate, and more willing to reach out to bereaved families to help them through the difficult time of death.
Image source Warsham College's official Facebook
Compared with professional courses in American universities that cost tens of thousands of dollars, the funeral industry is not an unaffordable degree.
It takes less time than a four-year university. Generally speaking, you can complete a professional associate degree in one year, and the tuition fee is not expensive, but the annual salary can reach 60,000 (about 430,000 yuan) to 7.5 Ten thousand US dollars (about 540,000 yuan).
Interestingly, most people have no intention of becoming managers unless they have a family business to carry on.
Ellen McBrayer is a funeral director in a family-run company that is now in its third generation.
The company currently has two branches in Georgia, where her grandmother was the first female superintendent to be licensed as a funeral service.
Ellen said that one of the original intentions of her grandmother to start the company was to hope that more women would join the industry.
Now the company has joined some fresh blood. This generation of young people has their own style of behavior and a more open mind. They do not stick to the rules, but provide services according to the needs of each family.
Ellen believes that 's funeral is not only to witness the passing of life, but also to understand another kind of life.
Saying goodbye to the deceased can also make a glorious career.
is not for everyone
There are several factors that inspire Americans to enter the funeral industry.
On the one hand, more and more schools have begun to offer flexible employment courses, giving many other practitioners interested in the industry more opportunities to acquire skills.
Like the aforementioned Warsham Academy, there has been a marked increase in enrolments since offering online courses two years ago.
The school offers a one-year associate's degree for $22,800 and a 16-month online associate's degree for $24,800, and 80 percent of the students enrolled in the online program are women.
On the other hand, the good career prospects in the funeral industry have also attracted the attention of many people.
According to from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for funeral home managers in 2021 will be $74,000, and the median salary for undertakers, undertakers and funeral arrangements will be $48,950.
While not as high-paying as other decent jobs, McMurrow says you can get promoted in just a few years.
In particular, people with degrees can quickly become funeral home managers or even run their own businesses.
Image source Warsham College official website
Even if the development prospects are good, the funeral industry has its own uniqueness. In terms of salary alone, it has not yet caught up with other industries, and there are still difficulties in recruiting and retaining talents.
Burnout is another challenge of working in this industry.
Especially in the worst period of the epidemic, employees in the entire industry are almost working non-stop without rest days.
From a good point of view, many freshmen and professionals decide to join the industry, but also out of the consideration of helping others.
In the past two years, when the people around you unexpectedly left this world, and the last witnesses and sent away the deceased, it was often the staff of the funeral home, not the family members. This experience will also have an impact on people's mood.
Hannah Walker, who graduated from Warsham College this summer, is one of them.
Image source Worthham College website
's experience of participating in funerals and handling funeral matters at the time made her empathize with those families who also lost loved ones, and hoped to do something about it.
About two and a half years ago, she took her first steps by calling several funeral homes to ask if she could be an apprentice there.
After nearly a year of apprenticeship, Hannah was more certain she wanted the job, so she signed up for the Warsham College online course and read it carefully.
Hannah, who now holds a degree certificate, can obtain a practicing license issued by Michigan as long as she completes the internship period, and then officially enter the funeral service industry.
Anderson, president of the American Funeral Industry Association, said that the funeral industry is not suitable for everyone, and practitioners must have professional ethics and be content to help others.
If it's just for a meal, it's often not a long way to go.
