Learn Spanish (Spain): Esta semana el departamento ha contratado a un empleado nuevo. - This week the department has hired a new employee.

In Spain, we use the Pretérito Perfecto (like ha contratado) when the action happens in a timeframe that is not finished yet. Because the sentence uses esta semana (this week), the week is still ongoing, so we use this tense rather than the simple past.

Why is there an a right after the verb in ha contratado a un empleado?

This is the personal a. In Spanish, whenever the direct object of a verb is a person, we must put the preposition a right before it. Since the new employee is a person, we need to include it.

Why does the verb use ha (singular) if a department is made of many people?

In Spanish, collective nouns like el departamento (the department), la familia (the family), or la gente (the people) take a singular verb because the grammatical word itself is singular. That is why we use the singular ha instead of the plural han.

Could I put the adjective before the noun and say un nuevo empleado?

Yes, you could! Placing nuevo before the noun (un nuevo empleado) is very common and emphasizes that the employee is a new addition to the team. Putting it after (un empleado nuevo) is the standard descriptive way. Both sound great and mean essentially the same thing here.