An impressive 43 percent of indoor tanning businesses hired more staff in the first six months of the 2008 tanning year than they did in 2007, according to a SmartTan.com poll conducted last week.

The poll – which also showed that one third of tanning businesses down-sized their staffs for the January-to-June period as compared to 2007 – was not scientific, but again falls in line with other economic polls conducted by SmartTan.com this year. One-quarter of tanning businesses reported no change in their staffing this year as compared to 2007.

“This is pretty consistent with the rest of our findings,” Smart Tan Vice President Joseph Levy said. “About a third of salon businesses are telling us their business is up, about a third are telling us it’s down and about a third are saying their results this year are similar to last year.”

But the fact that 43 percent say they’ve increased their staffing levels is a good sign. “People are investing in staff, which is a pretty good indicator that they’re serious about increasing revenue,” Levy said.

What isn’t clear is if more staff people translates into more man-hours in the salon or just more personnel working the same number of hours. “But it’s reasonable to assume that salons are investing in personnel – just as they’ve told us they are making investments in infrastructure and equipment.”