The threat of smart machines to jobs is becoming more recognized as the economy gradually improves but hiring still lags stubbornly behind. During the long recession, businesses have adopted strategies emphasizing “efficiency” which means more computers, automation and robots

That trend is particularly noticeable in manufacturing, as shown in the graph below.

The good news is that some production is moving back to the United States from abroad, but far fewer workers are being hired than in earlier times due to smart machines performing complex tasks.

In fact, some factories are practically human free.

PBS’ Paul Solman discussed robots in a Newshour segment a couple years ago, asking the question, “Should we fear the end of work?”

But even thoughtful analysts fail to connect the immigration dots with the automated future. Does America or any first-world nation need immigrants to do the jobs when the machine revolution is hard upon us? Big-immigration advocates like Paul Ryan insist that more foreigners are needed to replace the millions of retiring boomers, but automation changes that calculus completely.

One analytical company predicts that one-third of jobs will be performed by robots just 10 years from now, and that trend goes beyond manufacturing to cognitive tasks like financial analysis and medical diagnostics. A 2013 report from Oxford University researchers estimated that “nearly half of U.S. jobs are vulnerable to computerization.”

The future of employment looks dire, but the present is already bad enough. Jobless teens are finding a grim outlook to find entry-level work. The percentage among adults of workforce participation continues to shrink.

Bill Gates has observed that the public isn’t mentally prepared for the future where “labor demand for lots of skill sets will be substantially lower.” No surprise there — no leaders in any field are discussing the coming economic and social transformation.

The coming labor market will require fewer humans, but the new Congress may consider increased legal immigration as part of an amnesty, as has been suggested by some Republicans. Nobody in Washington wants to admit the true number of worker immigrants needed: ZERO.

MarketWatch asks the question in many minds: