In most stations, there's a Crew Lounge where you can hire crew members. These are only helpful if you have TWO fighters on board (since you'll be flying one). Once you have enough credits that you really don't care, you can hire them, then fire them.
Crew members take a cut from every mission EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT THERE. There are achievements for payouts, so you will probably need to keep them on board for a while at some point. You'll also need to hire an Expert pilot (150,000 credits) for another achievement.
Then fire them. You don't need them to eat into your profits.