Parties and the labour issue during the Pandemic: an analysis of Twitter attention

The COVID-19 pandemic not only triggered a global health emergency but also led to profound labour market disruptions and increased job insecurity across Europe. In this context, understanding how political parties responded to citizens’ worries becomes crucial for assessing democratic responsiveness and party competition in times of crisis. This paper investigates whether and to what extent political parties addressed labour market issues during the pandemic. Relying on a novel, hand-coded dataset of 84,506 tweets from official party accounts across 14 EU countries, the study compares party behaviour before (September 2019–February 2020) and during (March–June 2020) the first wave of COVID-19. The findings show that radical left parties were the most responsive to labour concerns, both before and during the pandemic, while mainstream left and right parties largely underemphasised the issue. Contrary to existing literature, the populist radical right did not increase attention to labour market insecurity, suggesting a disconnect between their rhetoric and agenda-setting behaviour. The results contribute to ongoing debates about issue ownership, party competition, and the changing dynamics of political responsiveness in the face of socioeconomic crises.