Here the first Employee specifies which type the reference variable is (adminEmployee). When you are using new operator as in " new Employee()" this is creating an object of type employee and then a reference to this object is created and assigned to the variable adminEmployee.
To make things clear for a beginner, here is the analysis
Employee adminAssistant = new Employee();
Understanding Step 1 - new Employee(); Hey Java Create me a new Object somewhere on the Heap. Java please note that the object belongs to the class "Employee"
Understanding Step 2- Employee adminAssistant I want to use a variable "adminAssistant" which gives me an access point to an object of type "Employee" stored somewhere which Im not really aware of
Understanding Step 3- Employee adminAssistant = new Employee(); Java , now I have the variable "adminAssistant" and the object . So I very well know which object the variable "adminAssistant" must refer to. So please use "adminAssistant" as a reference for the object you have created just now with "new Employee();" [ August 28, 2006: Message edited by: Srikanth Basavaraju ]