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%, accelerating from projections for 2025 growth, as improved productivity increasingly fuels gains.

That’s as the workforce stays generally flat in the coming years with the native-born population aging and President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown sending net inflows to as little as 160,000 a year—down from more than 3 million a few years ago. This agrees with another projection from last August, when J.P. Morgan Asset Management strategist David Kelly said it was quite possible there would be “no growth in workers at all” ove...