Quiet promoting is when you start taking on more duties than your job description states (and screw that “additional duties as assigned BS) or companies letting people go to run “lean” while giving the remaining people that extra work without any additional pay.
Companies have been guilty of this ever since I started my working career 32 years ago. I don’t think I have ever had a job where more was not put on to me than what was in my job description. They typically like to dangle the carrot of, “this could mean a promotion for you in the near future”, and it can go on for years. Typically if you ask for an update or a timeline all you will hear back is they are working on it or waiting for corporate to approve it.
As usual, they like to spread it across the media if it impacts them but not a word gets mentioned when it is them taking advantage of their employees.