How many Embalmers are there working in the United States

Embalmers are specialists who work preparing bodies for the afterlife. Embalming fluid and a number of other specialist procedures are used to preserve corpses. I'm not certain if this Embalming fluid is used for all deaths i.e. to prevent the spread of diseases etc from corpses or if used primarily for deaths where the family want an open coffin etc. I would expect even where a corpse is being cremated that some kind of preservative would be used but that the skills of an Embalmer are only employed where an open coffin is required and the body needs to look presentable for next of kin and those who wish to say goodbye.

Population of the US: I think there are around 400 million people in the USA.

Death Rate: (number of people dying per day): Life expectancy is around 75 years or so. I know women tend to live longer than men but would expect the average to be around 75 years. So in an average life would be 365 x 75 or 27,375 days.

400,000,000 / 27,375 = 14,611. So the 'death rate' in the United States is around 14,611 people dying per day. This many people dying every day would keep the population steady. The population may be growing or shrinking but for our purposes will assume it is steady.

% of those dying who would be embalmed (not cremated for example): So out of those 14,611 I would expect only around half would be buried with the other half cremated. Of the people who are buried I would further expect around a half of this number would need the an Embalmer. S0 (14,611 / 2) / 2 = 3,652.

Number of bodies a typical embalmer could expect to prepare per working day: Difficult but I would say at least 2 hours per body. Probably more if the deceased had died in an accident or something. Lets say 2 hours per body. So an Embalmer working full time could expect to prepare around 4 bodies per shift. 3,652 / 4 = 913.

I estimate there are about 913 full time Embalmers working in the USA.

(Having researched this there are actually 306m people in the USA - excludes illegal immigrants for obvious reasons. According to the National Centre for Health Statistics in 2006 there were 2,426,264 deaths in the United States. This averages at 6647.2 deaths per day. The term Death Rate actually refers to the number of people who die per 100,000 in a population per year and not how I have described in my post. For interest the death rate in the USA is about 810 death per 100,000 in 2006. There are no statistics I could find on the number of Embalmers working in the USA currently as they appear to be registered on a state level rather than nationally)