[January 20, 2023](Comprehensive report by Li Siqi, a reporter from the Epoch Times special department) The new round of epidemic in China has continued to spread since the outbreak in December last year.funeral parlorEntering the new year, we are busy recruiting staff, including non-staff personnel. As early as 2020, when the epidemic broke out, the number of new employees in the funeral service industry reached 6,398.Total number of employeesIt is a record and will continue to increase in 2021, reflecting the death disaster brought to the Chinese by the epidemic.
From December 2022, medical treatment is difficult,cremationThe difficulty of storing and storing dead bodies has been a hot topic on Chinese social media platforms.Just entering 2023, somefuneral parlorThey posted recruitment notices. For example, the registration period for Yibin Funeral Home in Sichuan is from January 4 to 6; , the deadline for registration in Luzhou, Sichuan is January 20.
Funeral service agencies will increase their staff not only at the beginning of 2023, but as early as 2020, when the epidemic broke out, the number of funeral service agencies in ChinaTotal number of employeeshas changed from decreasing to increasing.Although the CCP authorities have been concealing the death data of the epidemic, the sudden change in the statistics of China’s funeral industry in 2020 reveals that the Chinese people’s demand for funeral services has increased significantly in this year. Recruitment and acquisition of newcremationfurnace.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs of the Communist Party of China has published the “Statistical Bulletin on the Development of Civil Affairs” over the years, which contains the basic data of the national funeral service industry in that year. In 2015, the total number of employees of funeral service institutions in China was 83,851. Since then, in the four years from 2016 to 2019, the total number of employees in the funeral service industry has continued to decline, and the total number has dropped to 79,163 in 2019.
During 2020, however, the total number of funeral service workers was 85,561, an increase of 6,398 in one year alone. During 2021, the number of employees was 87,000, adding another 1,439, or about 22% of the 2020 headcount increase.

2020 is also an inflection point for the total number of cremators. In December 2009, the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the Communist Party of China issued guidelines on further implementing cremation and reforming burial to save land. During the ensuing nine-year period (2010 to 2018), the number of cremators nationwide increased overall, except for a decrease of 20 in 2011. Entering 2019, there were 44 fewer cremation furnaces.
But in 2020, there will be a sudden increase of 219 cremation furnaces across the country, bringing the total to 6,619; the increase will be even greater in 2021, with an increase of 424, bringing the total to 7,043. As the epidemic continues in 2021, all parts of China have increased their cremation capabilities.

Judging from the official data released by the CCP, the increase in cremation furnaces is related to the increase in the cremation rate, but this is not a decisive factor—although the number of cremation furnaces decreased in 2019, the cremation rate still increased by 1.9 percentage points. In 2013 and 2014, the number of cremation furnaces increased, but the cremation rate fell for two consecutive years, with a decline of 1.3 percentage points and 1.2 percentage points respectively. Therefore, the demand for cremation services is more likely to drive the increase in the number of cremation furnaces.
At the beginning of 2020, what was the cremation situation in Wuhan, Hubei Province, the source of the outbreak?
There are 8 funeral homes in Wuhan. The Chinese financial media “Caixin” reported on March 26, 2020, the scene of collecting urns at a funeral home in Hankou, Wuhan. The report said that the line was nearly 200 meters long, with two people in a row, “winding from the gate of the Jingya Hall of the Hankou Funeral Home to the gate of the Qianhe Hall on the east side”, and it has been open since three days ago (March 23) in Wuhan. Since the funeral home received the ashes, there have been long queues in funeral homes and public cemeteries.
The report also said that according to the staff of the funeral home in Hankou, February was the busiest month, and every male employee was called to carry the corpse.
The Wuhan Municipal Government Information Office’s Weibo public account “Wuhan Release” issued a notice on January 28, 2020: “In order to strengthen transportation capacity, we have enlisted the support of the Municipal Headquarters and the Provincial Department of Civil Affairs to deploy a batch of funeral vehicles, personnel and protective equipment. The equipment has been enriched to the funeral parlor, which has improved the capacity of receiving and transporting the remains and guaranteeing services.”
According to the information posted on Changping Cemetery.com, as of January 29, 2020, the Hubei Provincial Department of Civil Affairs has allocated 10 funeral vehicles and 40 funeral workers to Wuhan.
The severity of the epidemic in Wuhan in early 2020 is also reflected in Wuhan’s medical system. On December 26, 2019, Zhang Jixian, who realized that she had an infectious disease through a CT scan of the patient’s lungs, was the director of the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine at the Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine. The doctor who sounded the alarm of the epidemic across the country”. Zhang Jixian said in an interview with China Central Television in February, “There are too many patients, and our medical staff are suffering too much!”
She also said: “I shed all the tears of my life this time!”
Responsible editor: Lian Shuhua#
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