Indeed a lot of biotech/pharma positions in San Diego are filled by out-of-staters. It is also true that a lot of 20 something, Bachelor degreed, fresh out of college kids are taking the lower paid positions to live the So. Cal lifestyle for awhile. In fact in my company we’ve had several move back to their midwest home states in the past year to pursue grad school or other pharma positions. Again, they don’t have any ties to this city in the form of a mortgage and were all single. In my opinion, biotech doesn’t have a promising future in San Diego if the cost of living continues to rise as it has been. It is very hard to recruit upper management PhD’s with families and so the pool of talent is slightly diminished. I think we are scraping by as well and if this housing crisis continues, more and more people are going to realize that owning a home in SD won’t ever be possible and they’ll pick up and move.
