As described in this comment jenkins behaves differently when executing tests with surefire or failsafe: If a test executed with surefire fails the build continues and will be "unstable", if the same test is executed with failsafe the build fails completely (build status "failed").

Current behaviour: maven build (and jenkins build) fail if a test executed with failsafe fails.
Expected behaviour: maven build succeeds and jenkins build will be "unstable" if a test executed with failsafe fails.