Embalmer job description

A trocar, a pump, needles, and sutures do most of the embalmer's work, all of it aimed at a viewing where family and friends see the person looking at rest. The Handbook describes embalming as a cosmetic and temporary preservative process, and O*NET's own summary is shorter: prepare bodies for interment in conformity with legal requirements. Many funeral directors embalm, but BLS counts the specialists on their own line, 3,890 of them in May 2025. Their median was $58,780, a little above the funeral director median, on a range running from $38,310 at the tenth percentile to $77,570 at the ninetieth.

Core Duties and Responsibilities

Of all the embalmer's tasks, O*NET ranks a legal one first: meeting the health, sanitation, and embalming laws that govern the preparation room. The clinical work follows. Embalmers make incisions in an arm or thigh, drain the blood, and replace it with embalming fluid by pump, then probe the organs with a trocar to withdraw waste and force fluid in. They close incisions with sutures, join the lips with needle and thread or wire, and pack the body so nothing escapes. Cosmetics give a lifelike look, and restorative work rebuilds a damaged face or body with clay, cotton, plaster of Paris, and wax. Dressing and casketing the body and disinfecting the room round it out. O*NET also lists funeral directing and family interviews among an embalmer's core tasks, and an embalmer working for a coroner may assist at death scenes and testify in court.

Common Skills and Technologies

Speaking tops O*NET's skill ratings for embalmers, just ahead of active listening, which says how often the job leaves the preparation room. Writing, critical thinking, and social perceptiveness follow. Microsoft Excel, Word, and the Office suite turn up across employers' ads, per O*NET.

Education, Training, and Career Path

O*NET files embalmers under Job Zone Three. Survey answers on education split two ways: about 86 percent said the job calls for an associate's degree, and the other 14 percent a bachelor's. Accredited mortuary science programs include courses in embalming and restorative techniques. The license rules differ by state. California issues a separate embalmer license that requires a mortuary science degree, while its funeral director license does not. Georgia makes the embalmer license a prerequisite for a director license by exam, and Michigan's apprenticeship asks for a year, 2,080 hours, and at least 25 embalmings.

Sources: O*NET 30.0, 39-4011.00 Embalmers, https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/39-4011.00. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, 39-4011, https://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm. BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Funeral Service Occupations, https://www.bls.gov/ooh/personal-care-and-service/funeral-service-occupations.htm. California Cemetery and Funeral Bureau, https://www.cfb.ca.gov/about_us/faqs.shtml. Georgia State Board of Funeral Service, https://sos.ga.gov/georgia-state-board-funeral-service. Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, https://www.michigan.gov/lara/bureau-list/cscl/licensing/prof/mortuary.