Designing A Table With Records Which Are Applicable Over A Date Range

If you have a table that has records which are applicable over a date range, is there a preferred design for dealing with the dates?

A simple example might be an employee table, which might have multiple employees, with each employee have multiple records, each record being applicable over a particular date range.

For instance:

Code:
EmpID EmployeeName StartDate EndDate AdditionalFieldsOfData
00001 Jones, Jerry 4/6/2011 8/10/2011
00001 Jones, Jerry 8/11/2011 1/7/2012
00001 Jones, Jerry 1/8/2011 12/31/3000
00002 Fredricks, Fred 8/3/2011 10/15/2011
00002 Fredricks, Fred 10/16/2011 12/31/3000

One could model this table with an implied EndDate (of 12/31/3000), as in:

Code:
EmpID EmployeeName StartDate AdditionalFieldsOfData
00001 Jones, Jerry 4/6/2011
00001 Jones, Jerry 8/11/2011
00001 Jones, Jerry 1/8/2011
00002 Fredricks, Fred 8/3/2011
00002 Fredricks, Fred 10/16/2011

Or, one could imply the beginning date and store the first record's beginning date elsewhere, in a date hired table, or in additional field on each record. As in:

Code:
EmpID EmployeeName EndDate HireDate AdditionalFieldsOfData
00001 Jones, Jerry 8/10/2011 4/6/2011
00001 Jones, Jerry 1/7/2012 4/6/2011
00001 Jones, Jerry 12/31/3000 4/6/2011
00002 Fredricks, Fred 10/15/2011 8/3/2011
00002 Fredricks, Fred 12/31/3000 8/3/2011