Yes, the laid off people will surely leave San Diego.
I just spoke with another friend in biotech, and asked her how she sees the SD biotech industry. “Poorly”, she said. Most of the companies here are very small, and her jobs exists only at the big companies. She said the best biotech cities are San Francisco, Boston, and some places in North Carolina. SD comes in 3rd or 4th place.
All this makes me wonder if SD is really such an up and coming city in wireless or biotech. It appears we are scraping by and getting smaller in these areas.