#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $data_file = "record";

open(FILE, "<", $data_file) or die $!;
binmode(FILE);

my $file_len = -s FILE;

while($file_len > tell FILE) {
    read FILE, my $fixed, 8;
    my ($date, $rec_len) = unpack "L2", $fixed;

    read FILE, my $empl_info, $rec_len;

    # ... processing here
}

close FILE;