Tahlia Glatz was working in hospitality when a Covid-19 lockdown left her unable to work. She switched to fulltime funeral home work and is now, at 24, an embalmer. Photo / Mike Scott
Tahlia Glatz was working in hospitality when a Covid-19 lockdown left her unable to work. She switched to fulltime funeral home work and is now, at 24, an embalmer. Photo / Mike Scott
Warning: This story includes details about the embalming process, which some readers may find upsetting.
It starts with an incision into a main artery, before a machine mimicking a beating heart sends a mix of fluid that includes a varying percentage of formaldehyde through the body.
A second incision, this time in a neighbouring artery, removes the blood, before a process known as aspiration has the same effect on any fluid in hollow organs, with disinfectant added to make sure the body remains preserved.
Incisions are closed and that, more or less, is what happens when Tahlia Glatz, RnB music playing softly in the background, embalms a body.
More or less, because the 24-year-old wants to be respectful of those her profession serves, both living and dead.
That means being a little vague about the practicalities of a career switch that came in earnest for her after a Covid-19 lockdown temporarily shut the door on her old job, while still answering the question the former restaurant worker now finds herself being asked the most.
If you want to help others, a job in the funeral industry is a good option, Tahlia Glatz says. Photo / Mike Scott
How do you do it?
“Everyone’s always got a million questions... but yeah, that’s the most common,” Glatz said of the enduring curiosity into her job as an embalmer at Woolertons’ Funeral Home in Hamilton.
The public might be curious about a profession that will endure as long as there are people to ask questions about it, but not enough want to do it, with a funeral industry leader this month sounding a call on social media for more people to consider careers in funeral directing and embalming - especially as deaths are expected to rise significantly in coming decades with an increasing population and ageing Baby Boomer cohort.
“We’re currently seeing unprecedented vacancies in the funeral industry”, read a Funeral Directors’ Association of New Zealand LinkedIn post to several vacancies, reposted by the association’s chief executive Gillian Boyes with a personal plea.
“A number of my lovely members are looking for new staff in their funeral homes. Appreciate this might be a bit left-field for many of the people in my LinkedIn network, but perhaps you have friends or family who might be interested.”
Boyes told the Herald on Sunday she was aware of about eight vacancies for either funeral directors or embalmers among their association members, which are collectively responsible for about three-quarters of funerals in New Zealand.
“That might not sound like a huge number, but typically in a week we’d have two, maybe three, and those are the ones who have notified the association... pretty much a funeral home from every region is advertising with us at the moment.
“There’ll be lots more who are advertising just locally.”
Gillian Boyes is chief executive of the Funeral Directors' Association of New Zealand. Photo / Catherine Cattanach
More than 38,000 people died in New Zealand last year and demand for funeral industry services is only going to increase, Boyes said.
“We did an industry report a few years ago and certainly the growth trajectory will continue for the next decade or so because we’ve got a Baby Boomer bubble coming up.”
Deaths are expected to increase to more than 40,000 a year by the late 2030s and more than 50,000 a year by the 2050s, according to the NZ Funeral Services Industry Insights report, published by the association in 2016 and using Stats NZ data.
As well as overall population increases, the percentage of people aged 65 and older is expected to increase to account for 20 per cent of the population late this decade and 25 per cent by the 2050s.
As of last year, there were 842,000 people in New Zealand aged 65 or over, with the demographic projected to hit one million by 2028, according to Stats NZ.
Population change was balanced by the increase in life expectancy at all ages reducing the overall death rates at each age, but the Stats NZ data and projections still showed the increase in deaths would be “particularly pronounced in the 2030s and 2040s”, the 2016 industry report showed.
“[That’s] as the large numbers of people born in the 1950s to early 1970s reach the older ages where most deaths occur.”
Funeral homes seeking embalmers are facing the same pressure, New Zealand Embalmers’ Association president Jordan Goss said.
“There’s a lot of people complaining about not being able to get, and not being able to retain, embalmers,” Goss said.
The association’s membership of 223 represents about half of the embalmers in New Zealand.
Theirs was an industry that attracted “some interesting individuals”, especially when TV shows had shone a light on the profession - but left some aspects of the job in the dark, Goss said.
“They think that it’s an absolutely wonderful idea, but then it possibly loses a bit of steam when you realise you’ve also got to wash cars and clean toilets and go out at 3 o’clock in the morning.”
New Zealand Embalmers' Association president Jordan Goss, who is a qualified funeral director and embalmer.
Pay ranged from between $55,000 and $65,000 a year for new starters to up to about $85,000 for qualified embalmers. The most recent salary survey from a couple of years ago for funeral directors showed pay rates between $60,000 and $80,000.
The lack since 2019 of a qualification for embalmers to study towards had also been an issue, but this month new provider Kalandra Education Group received New Zealand Qualifications Authority approval to offer a course, said Goss, who is a qualified embalmer and funeral director who manages Legacy Funerals in Hamilton.
This is aimed at those already working as embalmers, which, like funeral directing, is initially learned by on-the-job training from an employer.
A funeral directing diploma was also available for those already working in the industry, after being offline for a few years, said Boyes, the Funeral Directors’ Association boss.
“We’ve got that back now, which is great, but we’ve got a shortage of qualified people now because there was no professional training available for a couple of years... a lot of funeral homes are looking for qualified, experienced staff and they can’t find them.”
Membership of their association required at least one staff member holding the diploma, with professional development important in an industry that was changing to meet the increased expectations of families, she said.
This ranged from requests to hold funerals in public places, such as the beach, to embracing new technology such as livestreaming.
“It used to be that there’d be a little desk at the back of the chapel with a projector on it. Well, now it’s full-on multimedia,” Boyes said.
The opportunity to help grieving families in their time of need is compelling for those attracted to a role others might shy away from, including older workers looking for a career change or mums of now-grown children.
Jobs were advertised, but homes often find staff from talking to people in their own communities - which is how Glatz, the young embalmer, got her job.
Her new bosses were semi-regulars at the restaurant she worked at, and offered her a job, which started with helping at funerals, cleaning and reception work, before she began learning other tasks, such as bathing bodies and, eventually, embalming.
When she's not embalming, Tahlia Glatz pitches in with other tasks including cleaning, laundry, putting handles on caskets, designing service sheets and making cups of tea after funerals. Photo / Mike Scott
Although she’d always been interested in how the ancient Egyptians developed mummification, the career change was still daunting at first.
“I had the nervous shakes... it is confronting.”
Glatz knows a career in the funeral industry isn’t for all. But it could be one for more people than you might think.
“I think a lot more people would be less scared of it than they think they are... if you think you can, and you want to help families that are in grief, this is the way to do it.
“It’s a super-rewarding and comforting type of job.”
