This northeastern Ont. funeral director wants to retire after 45 years but he can't

Funeral directors across northern Ontario say fewer people are entering the industry, forcing some to delay their retirement.

Collin Bourgeois is a funeral director with Thort Bourgeois Funeral Home, with locations in Sudbury, Verner andSturgeon Falls.

After 45 years in the business, Bourgeois said,he's staying on the job because there's no one trainedto take over.

"I certainly tried to retire," Bourgeois said. "It lasted threeweeks."

He said there's a pressing needto get more people in the fieldas the current slate of funeral home directors in the province nears retirement age.

There's night work, there's evening work. There are situations that we are exposed to that are just difficult to live with and to see every day. Collin Bourgeois, ThortBourgeois Funeral Home

The Ontario Funeral Service Association'swebsite currently has over a dozen active postings for jobs across the province, as well as listings for two funeral homes up for sale.

"There's just nobody interested in doing the work," Bourgeois said. "Our colleges are not receiving any applications for funeral service education programs. And professional associations are trying to recruit as many people as they can. There just doesn't seem to be any interest at this time."

Tough conditions, thinner labour pool

Bourgeois said the demands of the job late-night calls at 2a.m. are not uncommon for him, plus dealing with people in various states of emotional distress could be keeping new recruits at bay.

"The conditions are not always the best." he said. "There's night work, there's evening work. There are situations that we are exposed to that are just difficult to live with and to see every day," Bourgeois said.

"It takes the right person to do this. We sometimes call it a vocation. You're called to this. You are asked to do this. It comes from within you. You can't fake it."

In Sudbury, Collge Boral runs one of the province's two programs for funeral services. The other is out of Humber College in Toronto.

Donald Perreault, a professor with the Funeral Services program at Collge Boral, said the school admits an average of 15 to 20 students into the program every year,the bulk of them being female.

He's noticed changes to the industry, including fewer new workers, butsaid thatin recent years, the prospect of taking high-paying jobs in mining or government has been more enticing for people entering the workforce.

There's also another challenge that new directors face when they enter the industry: attrition.

"This isn't new, but in the course of five years, you can have people who have graduated as funeral directors leave the profession," Perreault said. "So there's a shortage there right from the start."

Conducting research

Perreault said Collge Boral is doing what it can, partnering up with local funeral homes to ensure that graduates receive not only plenty of experience before graduating, but also providing homes with a pipeline of skilled talent.

The school has also been conducting research to pin down where the industry's opportunity for growth are.

"We're looking at creating certificates to maybe help people that are not interested necessarily in funeral services but who want to work in a funeral home in an administrative capacity or whatnot. That perhaps we could develop a program for people who wish to do that. That in turn would alleviate a lot of the work that licensed funeral directors do.

"There's also a trend now to what we call transfer services," Perreault said. "Where people do not wish to have a traditional-type funeral, not purchasing a casket or embalming, or where they request that the body be taken from the place of death and brought to the crematorium or the cemetery directly without any services or whatnot."

That shift may have hurt traditional funeral homes' bottom line, but it may also represent a potential area for growth.

"Maybe we need to examine that," Perreault said. "We don't necessarily need licensed funeral directors to do that, but other staff members could be trained to help out in those situations."