Has the decline of knowledge work begun?

What I worry a lot more instead is how knowledge of manufacturing and engineering could be lost due to our greed.

Typical scenario: Industry I is not doing fine in country C (i.e. the fund managers are not happy about lack of growth of the public companies in this sector) due to reasons R1, R2, ..., Rn. Then management decided to outsource and eventually dismantle the factories to "globalize" it. Knowledge retained by the older generation of engineers, technicians and workers were completely lost when they passed away.

> Knowledge retained by the older generation of engineers, technicians and workers were completely lost when they passed away.

That has happened quite often in the past [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lost_inventions

Only three real examples on that page.

Petrification: no real loss to society but I will concede that this appears to be an example of actual loss of "progress". Very few people are saying "oh diety, if only I could preserve this animal with perfect color and texture (but discarding all other characteristics).

Greek fire: the history of when this knowledge was lost is unclear. Also it was intentionally kept secret. Certainly we have functionally similar tech now. I'll give 50% credit.

Panjagan: We don't even know if this was a weapon or a technique? Everything about this is incredibly vague.

In summary, this has happened approximately 1.5 times in the past. Not "quite often".