Objective: To estimate loss of employable life-years over time in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods: We used a Markov model to estimate employable life-years using data from ASPIRE,a randomized clinical trial comparing the efficacy and safety of infliximab+methotrexate (MTX) (IFX group) and placebo + MTX (MTX group) among early RA patients. Employability state was defined as 'unemployable' if patients were unemployed and felt unable to work even if a job was available or 'employable' if patients were employed or felt well enough to work if a job were available. The one-year transition probability of employability was estimated using a logistic regression model, and loss of employable life-years was estimated using a two-state Markov model. Results: For a patient at age 45 years, 31.4 % of female and 29.7% of male were unemployable using the regression model. For patients starting at age 45 and employable, the probability of remaining employable after one-year of treatment was 0.928 in males and 0.905 in females in the IFX group, and 0.899 in males and 0.867 in females in the MTX groups, respectively. For patients unemployable, the probability to be employable after one-year treatment was 0.481 in males and 0.405 in females in the IFX groups, and 0.390 in males and 0.319 in females in the MTX groups, respectively. In the Markov model, after 10 years at age 55, 18.5% of females and 14.1% of males in the IFX groups, and 30.7% of females and 24.2% of males in the MTX groups will be unemployable. On average, 0.99 employable life-years will be saved per patient over 10 years in IFX-treated patients compared to MTX-treated patients. Conclusion: This analysis presents a new method to estimate employable life-years using a Markov model, and demonstrated that IFX-treated patients could gain economic benefit by retaining employability over time.