An analysis of the yellow pages in 2002 revealed, that most hairdressing and barbers businesses (84%) are proprietor owned micro-businesses. The average salon size in the industry is 5 persons, with typically the owner, who continues to work behind the chair plus 4 employees. The most common beauty therapy salon size is the owner plus two staff.

African Caribbean hairdressing and barbering form specialist sub-sectors within hairdressing in terms of services. African Caribbean specialist hairdressing:

• just over 10% offer hair relaxation (straightening) services
• 3% thermal styling
• 7% braiding and weaving
• around 3% of establishments plan to offer these services in the near future

Barbers:

• between 66% and 75% offer moustache/beard trimming, cutting/ clipper sculpture, colouring and perming
• 46% of barbers also offer hair and scalp analysis services
• face massage and wet shaving is now offered by relatively few, although around 3% of barbers indicated they intended to do so in the future

Source: HABIA 2000