Silhouettes of laptop and mobile device users are seen next to a screen projection of Microsoft logo. Photo: Reuters / Dado Ruvic / Illustration.

CTech – Microsoft’s Israeli research and development center will begin assimilating its contract employees as permanent staff members, according to an email sent to employees by the center’s General Manager Assaf Rappaport and reviewed by Calcalist.

Contract employees, hired through a third party company, are legally considered non-permanent workers, exempting their employers from paying some social benefits. Israeli law restricts contract employment to a nine-month period, requiring the company to either let the employee go or hire them as permanent staff. Many companies, however, use a loophole to fire employees after said period only to rehire them again under the same terms.

“After a long and complex process we are beginning to hire outside contractors and professional service providers as part of the general staff of our Israeli R&D center,” Rappaport said in the email. According to the email, the company will absorb about 100-130 contract employees, starting next month. The center currently employs over 1,200 people in Herzliya, a town north of Tel Aviv.