Far from providing employees with more security, inflated job titles can make employees more expendable (Inflated job titles pose real risks to employers: Experts, March 20).

Does any of this matter? Title inflation clearly does violence to the language. Familiar problems of monetary inflation apply to job-title inflation as well.

The benefits of giving people a fancy new title are usually short-lived, but the harm can be long-lasting. People become cynical about their monikers, particularly when these are given in lieu of pay rises. Organisations become more hypothetical and the job market becomes more opaque.

When it comes to job titles, we live in an age of rampant inflation. Almost everybody you come across seems to be a chief or president of some variety.

Often, bosses are doling out ever fancier titles as a substitute for pay rises and bonuses. But there are also structural reasons for the trend.

The most basic is the growing complexity of businesses. Many not only have presidents and vice-presidents for this or that product line, but also presidents and vice-presidents for various regions. Put the two together, and you have a recipe for ever-longer business cards.

Workers crave important-sounding titles to give them the illusion of ascending the ranks. Managers who no longer have anyone to manage are fobbed off with inflated titles.

This is one way to make employees happy without spending money, but it is exploitative. Still, some employees like it because they mistakenly think it is easier to get another VP job. So offering big titles is a good way to entice talented people to join your small company and it looks good on their resume.

Job-title inflation also has an economic cost if it makes the market more opaque and it is harder to assess the going pay rate. Title inflation can also devalue one’s credibility if the performance does not match the title.

Desmond Cheng