The phrase "are less competent" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to compare the abilities or skills of two or more subjects, indicating that one is not as skilled as the other.
Example: "In this particular task, the new employees are less competent than their experienced counterparts."
Alternatives: "are not as skilled" or "have lower competence."
As New Orleans is showing us, some elected officials are less competent at fulfilling it than others.
There is no reason to believe that our policymakers are less competent than those in Argentina: the threat of a second Great Depression was nonsense.
Rather, it is being driven by the very blunt tool of austerity and that harms services in the places that are less competent to implement new models of care.
Gametes arrested at prophase I are less competent than mature MII eggs to undergo CGE, even when stimulated with treatments that induce calcium transients that mimic what occur during fertilization26.
In addition, using dyadic data from buyers and suppliers, this research indicates that the gap between the suppliers' and the buyers' perceptions of their share of costs and earnings is larger when suppliers are less competent.
The obvious objection here is that if Bachmann's gaffe list continues to grow, she, in combination with Sarah Palin as America's other most high-profile female politician, will help fuel the opposite belief: that women are less competent and capable than their male peers for political office.
Are opponents of the popular vote saying our country is less competent at running elections than France or Mexico?
Additionally, implicit ratings of competence revealed a belief that a depressed person is less competent than a physically ill person, but the opposite was found when measured explicitly.
Some of the Barbizon painters were masters of composition and description; others were less competent.
Stereotypical portrayals of black Americans generally show them as being less competent than their white counterparts, but not necessarily less friendly or warm, Dupree explains.
Gray lost his job because, when he thought he wasn't being filmed, he suggested that women were less competent than men.
