Failure demand in public employment and immigrant integration services

Hermanni Hyytiälä has opened my eyes to the phenomenon called failure demand. In this article I express a few thoughts about the failure demand, especially in the context of (public) employment and immigrant integration services. This article in Finnish.

Below are some quotes about the failure demand and my reflections. Quotes are taken from the following article written in Finnish. Good service costs less - The phenomenon of failure demand reveals the leaks of the service system and our thinking, Hyytiälä & Mäntyselkä, Lääkäri-lehti 12 April 2022.

1. quote: In failure demand, the customer returns to the service again and again because the service has failed. As a result, the customer is dissatisfied, the organization is burdened, the employees get tired, and the costs rise.

 This is a familiar phenomenon also in public employment services and in services for integrating immigrants, for example in education. Either the customer's need has not been recognized in the first place, or the need has been recognized, but for some reason or other the customer has been guided to the wrong kind of service.

 2. quote "The phenomenon of heavy users has long been recognized in health care and social services. A small number of people accumulate the majority of service visits because these users do not get help. So far, the phenomenon has not been linked to failure demand in Finland."

The long-term unemployed is the corresponding group when talking about employment services. It is common everyday knowledge that there are unemployed people who do not benefit (get employed) despite the continuous and versatile services. Does this have anything to do with the failure demand?

In the case of the unemployed, the administration monitors the activation rate, i.e. the percentage of those in services and the effectiveness of the services (proportion of unemployed x months after the end of the services). The activation rate of immigrants is typically high, but the effectiveness is low.

I have heard claims from people who have spent thousands of hours in Finnish language training, but still haven't learned the language. Are these "services" for the organization and its staff or for the customer? Can we accept that education only has a function to "store" immigrants? I do understand that some failures can happen, but I'm not sure if the case depicted is a unique one.

3. quote: "The task of primary healthcare is to produce health benefits, and therefore effectiveness should not be based on the number of work performances, but on the interactive and multi-professional ability to meet the client's individual needs in the respective context."

The goal of employment and integration services is to produce employment and inclusion benefits. However, the idea of dialogic ability of the professional and its effect on the customer's life has been trampled upon and replaced by a measurable, quantitative service process in employment services.

The built-in challenge in immigrant integration services is the customers' low level of knowledge, combined with a strong drive to move forward. As a result, people apply for, for example, training courses that they happen to get information about, and not according to their needs and wishes. This is reinforced by the fact that there are no resources and not necessarily expertise to meet the customer.

There is no degree or qualification to become a professional in employment or integration services. Professionals learn the job while working. Employee orientation and collegial example have the greatest impact on the working of a single employee. This leads to inconsistent work with customers and thus to failure demand.

One example of failure demand (and supply) in the promotion of immigrant integration is also the fact that certain incentives direct both individuals and organizations to undesirable activities. One example: a person who has completed a vocational qualification in Finnish or Swedish does not have to separately demonstrate his language skills when he applies for Finnish citizenship. This has resulted in an apparently large number of foreign citizens studying in vocational education and training with the goal of citizenship, not a profession. At the same time, educational organizations benefit to some extent because they get students and thus money ("failure supply").

What do you think? According to your experience, is the failure demand a significant phenomenon in public employment and immigrant integration services? If so, what causes it and what could/should be done about it?