This paper analyses the relationship between unemployment and its respective duration on subsequent salary. Despite of being a topic of intense debate in the labour market literature, there is little empirical evidence to support this perspective in the Brazilian labour market. Drawing on data from the Monthly Employment Survey (2008, 2009) and following the methodology proposed by Tunali (1986), plus an analysis of wage differential, the findings go in the same direction of earlier studies (e.g. Keltzer, 1998; Burda and Mertens, 2001; Arulampalam 2001; Arranz et al., 2010) by highlighting that unemployment duration generates a cost to employees represented in a subsequent wage loss. In other words, it seems that workers who have recently experienced unemployment spell have disadvantages in terms of wages compared to those who remained employed throughout the period under inquiry.