Canada added 75,000 jobs in July, about five times forecasts, while the US economy shed 23,000. The split hands the Canada crypto industry a stronger home market than American firms have seen all summer.

Statistics Canada put unemployment at 6.4% on Friday, a two-year low. US payrolls, meanwhile, missed forecasts by more than 100,000 positions after steep revisions.

A Five Times Beat Meets a US Contraction

Economists expected Canada to add about 15,000 jobs. It added 75,000. The gains split almost evenly between full-time and part-time work, according to the labour force survey.

Ontario did the heavy lifting with 52,000 new positions. Finance, insurance, and real estate added 18,000 jobs. Professional, scientific, and technical services added 17,000 more. Those two sectors matter here. They are where digital asset firms hire.

Canada has now added 181,000 jobs since April. That makes three straight months of gains.

“Three straight months moving in the right direction is exactly how turning points begin. And if the breadth we saw in July holds into the fall, stabilization could quietly become the momentum Canada has been waiting for,” Laura Ulrich, director of economic research at recruitment firm Indeed, said in a statement.

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The American report read like a different economy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 23,000 payroll decline. Economists had expected gains of 80,000 to 90,000. Worse, revisions erased another 103,000 jobs from May and June. US hiring has averaged just 34,000 a month over the past year.

One caveat keeps the contrast honest. America’s 4.1% unemployment rate still sits well below Canada’s 6.4%. However, the US rate held flat while jobs vanished. Canada’s fell while hiring boomed. Direction, not level, is the story.

Central Bank Paths Split as Bitcoin Holds $65,000

The divergence pulls the two central banks apart. Royce Mendes, managing director at Desjardins, said a Bank of Canada rate hike remains unlikely before 2027. BMO chief economist Douglas Porter flagged the reason. Wage growth cooled to 2.8%, the slowest in four years.

Strong hiring without wage pressure gives the Bank of Canada room to wait. The Federal Reserve has the opposite problem. A shrinking payroll makes further tightening hard to defend.

Within hours, the miss sent Fed expectations spinning as traders repriced US rates. Crypto markets, which rallied after June’s report, once again read weak US data as a liquidity signal.

Bitcoin (BTC) traded near $65,000 on Friday, up 0.8% over 24 hours, according to BeInCrypto Markets data. Its market capitalization stood at roughly $1.31 trillion.

Can the Canada Crypto Industry Capitalize?

Canada has moved first before. The Toronto Stock Exchange listed the world’s first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in February 2021. That fund, the Purpose Bitcoin ETF, today holds about 18,500 BTC worth $1.7 billion CAD. US regulators needed almost three more years to approve rival spot products.

The rulebook is growing too. The Stablecoin Act, passed through Budget 2025’s Bill C-15, puts fiat-backed stablecoin issuers under Bank of Canada oversight. Issuers must hold one-to-one reserves and redeem at par. The rules should take force in 2027.

Major players are already positioning for that date. Coinbase Canada CEO Eric Richmond said in July the firm wants to build an “everything exchange” for Canadians. The plan spans crypto, stocks, and prediction markets. He tied the full rollout to those same stablecoin rules.

Nevertheless, the headwinds are real. British Columbia permanently banned new grid connections for crypto mining in October 2025. The province is steering its clean power toward AI and industry instead.

US venues still command far deeper liquidity. And CIBC senior economist Andrew Grantham noted Canadian unemployment sits about half a point above full employment.

The next tests come fast. Draft stablecoin rules are due in the Canada Gazette. August payrolls land on both sides of the border within a month. Together, they will show whether July’s divergence was a trend or a blip.

Source: BeInCrypto