Embalmers
Human Services · Personal Care Services
Pay and outlook shown for
New workers start near $38,960; experienced workers reach $66,960. About 680 people do this job in Texas.
Job outlook
U.S. projection, 2024 to 2034.
- Employment change
- +1%
- Openings a year
- 600
- Employed in 2024
- 3,600
Typical entry education: Associate's degree · Training: Long-term on-the-job training
Alamo Colleges programs that lead here
1 program, with the college that teaches each.
Skills this career uses
The skills O*NET rates most important for the job, with how much of each the work needs on a 1 to 7 scale.
- Speaking3.8
- Active Listening3.8
- Social Perceptiveness3.9
- Critical Thinking3.1
- Time Management3.1
- Writing3.0
- Service Orientation3.0
- Reading Comprehension3.4
What the work is
Prepare bodies for interment in conformity with legal requirements.
- Conform to laws of health and sanitation and ensure that legal requirements concerning embalming are met.
- Apply cosmetics to impart lifelike appearance to the deceased.
- Incise stomach and abdominal walls and probe internal organs, using trocar, to withdraw blood and waste matter from organs.
- Close incisions, using needles and sutures.
- Reshape or reconstruct disfigured or maimed bodies when necessary, using dermasurgery techniques and materials such as clay, cotton, plaster of Paris, and wax.
- Make incisions in arms or thighs and drain blood from circulatory system and replace it with embalming fluid, using pump.
Education people in this job have
Share of workers by highest education, from O*NET surveys. It shows what others did, not what you must do.
- Associate degree86%
- Bachelor's degree14%
Job zone 3, medium preparation: Training, an associate degree, or a few years of related experience.
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