Over my lifetime some things have just stuck with me.  A couple of those things are quotes that share a message of complicated projects or ideas that might seem insurmountable but also give the hope to try. . . because maybe the idea might just work.

The first one I remember is from back in the early 1980’s I had an idea for a business and I sent a certified letter to a Minnesota businessman who was in the Forbes 400 of most wealthy Americans and who’s business touched on the perimeter of this business.  I received this reply from that businessman, “This sounds like an ambitious project and one would wonder how you could ever succeed, however, until I’ve heard the complete proposal I’m in no position to criticize it.”

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

That was followed up with an invitation to come and visit him at his offices.  In the anything can happen category, he did not invest but we became friends and one of his children sat in on the meeting and I became friends with him also — and still am friends with both to this day.  At the end of the day I pursued the business, had some success, and the idea eventually became very successful when a larger group with much larger resources than I had took over the concept.

The businessman’s open-attitude to some small town funeral director entrepreneur made a difference in my life as it taught me to always be open to ideas that may seem insurmountable. . . but just might happen.

The second cliche that resonates with me is when Senator Ted Kennedy eulogized his brother Robert Kennedy  (RFK) at the services following his assasination in 1968.  Ted Kennedy summed up his brother’s passion for improving the world with one of RFK’s own quotes.

That quote was, “Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.”

It’s with that preamble that I look toward the future and “outside the box” of Death Care to give you four ideas I see on the horizon of Death Care.  These are ideas I see with the ability to become reality in the Death Care business world.  And, while today’s column is to get you thinking. . . . I will expound on each idea in greater length over the rest of this week.

The four thoughts I have are as follows:

1. Family funeral homes being sold not only for cash prices, but with some part of the purchase price paid by the buyer to be in royalty payments moving forward based on a percentage of future revenues that the business generates.
2. The four-day work week for professional employees of funeral homes
3. Hospice services moving into Death Care, and more specifically, Direct Cremation and the offsite Celebration/Service business
4. A higher percentage of Death Care services being paid for by a more socially motivated government.

It’s my thought process that none of these ideas are guaranteed to happen.   However, I also believe the trend-line is apparent for a world where they could happen.

Stay tuned.

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I’ve now moved the Funeral Director Daily home office to our winter rental in Southwest Florida for the next 90 days.  With that comes a few rounds of golf per week and the chance to meet and visit with new people whom I meet on the golf course.

It didn’t take me long to have the opportunity to play with a couple of Canadian “snowbirds” and strike up a conversion about the funeral home industry.  Now these two Canadians that I played with this week are not in the Death Care profession but have friends who are.

One of them mentioned to me that in his small community which, according to Wikipedia, has a population of 7,466 people his friend who owns the funeral home is looking to get out of the business — not because of profits — but because he cannot find any professional help which renders him on call 24/7 365 days per year.  That level of call is something he no longer is willing to live with.

Back in September 2024 Funeral Director Daily published this article titled “Mobility, remote locations may cause lack of services for consumers“.  That article dealt with the city of Prince Rupert, British Columbia, population of over 12,000 people, that no longer had a functioning full-service funeral home for its citizens.  The Northern View, a Prince Rupert publication, published a 3-part story on that situation titled “Prince Rupert’s Death Care crisis” which you can access here.

So, with that information as a prelude, I wanted to take a look at employment in general and find what I could on funeral director employment in specific.  I found that it is difficult to find any comparative statistics on the employment situation in funeral homes, but some of the information I found led me to believe the following:

The labor market in Death Care is still very tight, but somewhat defined, at least in my viewpoint, by community size.  Even though there were record enrollments in mortuary schools in 2021 and 2022 it does not seem to have made a big dent in bringing funeral homes to full-employment levels in all locales.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

One reason for that is maybe that more and more funeral directors, like other professions, are retiring early. . . .so mortuary school graduates are are replacing those that retire, instead of adding to their numbers.  This CNBC article points out that more than half (58%) of employees retire earlier than they expected to — it’s interesting to note that this decision is not always by choice — sometimes there are issues, such as health reasons, involved

The Jobs Openings and Labor Turnover survey (JOLTS) reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday showed that both the “hiring” and “quitting” numbers declined in the latest month.  It’s somewhat obvious to me that if less people “quit” their jobs for whatever reason then there would be less “hiring” done to replace them.  It’s also interesting to note that both the “Hires” and “Quits” numbers are as low as they have been since the pandemic.  One school of thought might think that is reflective because employers are unsure of the future economy and don’t want to “Hire” and employees are also wary of the future and don’t want to “Quit”.

I also took a look at some of the job postings on regional and national funeral home operator websites.  Anecdotally, it appears to me that those posted positions in rural communities tend to stay open longer than those posted positions in urban or suburban communities before a hiring is made.

That situation reminds me of the days not too long ago where Health Care employment had the same issues.  And, those Health Care “open employment listings” were more often than not for specialists where being “on call” at least for some time period was essential.  For instance, if a rural area had one physician of a certain specialty that physican had to be on call 24/7 365 days per year — and like the Canadian funeral director might tire of that situation over time.  That “tired” physician then moved to a more urban/suburban area where his call schedule was less rigid.

Health Care, in general, solved those issues with consolidation or the hiring of additional specialists (to share the call schedule).

I’m wondering, “Is the funeral home business, because of its “on call” necessity going to reach that situation in the rural areas soon?”  If it does, because of the difference in consumer and governmental “spend” between Health Care and Death Care services, I’m not so sure that additional employees can be the solution for funeral homes because of the lack of profitability or ability to raise prices. . . . .meaning “consolidation” may be.

Related Article — “New data points to “stable” job market amid “low layoffs, low quits”.  Yahoo Finance

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