Top analyst warns the economy is figuring out how to grow without creating new jobs, leaving a major vulnerability

Last summer, Bank of America Research predicted a “sea change” in the economy as companies showed increasing signs of learning how to be productive with fewer workers, putting process over people. Six months later, analysts see another year of growth—in GDP, not new jobs. It rhymes with another projection, from Goldman Sachs, that “jobless growth” could become the new normal in the 2020s.

Michael Pearce, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, wrote on Wednesday that GDP should expand by 2.8%...