CDI Corp. Reports Profitable Third Quarter 2003 and Announces Dividend

(Corrected version as of October 31, 2003)

Philadelphia (October 22, 2003) – CDI Corp. (NYSE: CDI) today reported earnings for the quarter ended September 30, 2003 and announced a quarterly cash dividend.

For the quarter ended September 30, 2003, the company reported net earnings of $6.0 million, or $0.30 per diluted share, on revenues of $264.4 million. The company also announced that its Board of Directors voted on October 21, 2003 to pay a quarterly dividend of $0.09 per share to all shareholders of record as of November 4, 2003. The dividend will be paid on November 18, 2003.

“Revenues were down slightly to the second quarter as we experienced some business softening due to the continued sluggish economy. In addition, we decided to dispose of the last of the company-owned MRI offices to a franchisee which resulted in lower revenues,” said President and Chief Executive Officer Roger H. Ballou. “We also experienced a loss in billable employee hours due to the September hurricane in the Mid-Atlantic States and the blackout that affected many of our Northeast U.S.-based clients. Nevertheless, CDI remains solidly profitable, achieving net earnings of $6.0 million in this quarter versus a net loss of $0.6 million in the previous year,” said Ballou.

Business Unit Discussion

Revenue for the CDI Professional Services segment was up 1.6% from the second quarter reflecting continued strength in CDI Anders Elite and a slight uptick in information technology staffing. These gains offset a decline in domestic technical staffing. Gross profit margins moved up slightly as Professional Services continued to focus on higher margin engagements.

CDI’s Project Management segment showed a slight sequential decline in operating profit as revenue softness and start up expenses on new contracts were largely offset by an increase in gross profit margin. “Our Project Management business is solid, but we have not seen a broad recovery that extends across all of our industry verticals,” said Ballou.

Management Recruiters International revenue showed a sequential decline of 19.0%. Most of that decline reflects the disposition of the last of the company-owned offices to a franchisee and some softness in placements in MRI’s specialty staffing group. Overall, franchise royalties remained relatively flat to the second quarter.

Todays Staffing revenue was down 6.5% on a sequential basis due to a seasonal decline in banking project business versus the second quarter.

Corporate Summary

Corporate overhead costs decreased both sequentially and year-over-year as CDI continued to maintain spending discipline in its headquarter operations.

Business Outlook

“While heartened by the government’s statistics on the economic recovery, we have yet to see any real improvement in our business, nor would we expect to for three to six months after the beginning of a turnaround due to our mix of business,” said Ballou. “If economic statistics continue to be positive, we hope to see significant improvement in hiring and capital investment three to six months into fiscal year 2004. In the interim, we expect continued revenue softness in the fourth quarter due to typical seasonality as clients idle plants in some of our key vertical markets.”

Financial Tables Follow

Conference Call/Webcast
CDI Corp will conduct a conference call at 11 a.m. (EST) today to discuss this announcement. The conference call will be broadcast live over the Internet and can be accessed by any interested party at www.cdicorp.com. An online replay will be available at www.cdicorp.com for 14 days after the call.

Company Information
CDI Corp. (NYSE: CDI) is a Fortune 1000 professional services and outsourcing company. Its divisions and subsidiaries include CDI Engineering Solutions, CDI Professional Services, Todays Staffing, and Management Recruiters International, the world’s largest executive search and recruitment organization. Visit CDI on the web at www.cdicorp.com

Safe Harbor Statement

Certain information in this news release contains forward-looking statements as such term is defined in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Certain forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "believes," "expects," "may," "will," "should," "seeks," "approximately," "intends," "plans," "estimates," or "anticipates" or the negative thereof or other comparable terminology, or by discussions of strategy, plans or intentions. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These include risks and uncertainties such as competitive market pressures, material changes in demand from larger customers, availability of labor, the company's performance on contracts, changes in customers' attitudes towards outsourcing, government policies or judicial decisions adverse to the staffing industry, changes in economic conditions, and delays or unexpected costs associated with its restructuring program. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. The company assumes no obligation to update such information.

Contact:

Vincent Webb
Vice President, Corporate Communications and Marketing
215-636-1240
Vince.Webb@cdicorp.com

Jay Stuart
Chief Financial Officer
215-636-1141
Jay.Stuart@cdicorp.com

CDI CORP. AND SUBSIDIARIES
Consolidated Statements of Earnings
Unaudited
(in thousands, except per share data)

(a) Current quarter combined with the three preceding quarters earnings (loss) from continuing operations before income taxes, minority interests and cumulative effect of accounting change divided by the average shareholders’ equity. Included in pre-tax earnings (loss) in the previous twelve months for the 2003 and 2002 calculations are $0.1 and $46.7 million, respectively of pre-tax event-driven and restructuring expenses.

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