If you’ve been wrongly or illegally terminated, your employer must pay for the full damages that you sustained, such as lost wages.  While this sounds fair, the actual damages are more difficult to determine.  Additionally, you will also be responsible for mitigating your damages (in other words, you must actively seek employment).
In most cases, when a person is subject to wrongful termination, that person will be unemployed for some amount of time.  The person may receive unemployment compensation; however, this may not make up for a person’s lost wages. They may also not be able to obtain a job with the same salary or benefits that they were making.  These and other facts will be considered in determining damages.